We interrupt the previously scheduled program for this important announcement….
Played last night, and as usual, playing a round of golf brought up a couple of interesting issues involving rules.
First of all, the green on #14 is in sad shape. I suspect lack of water, but it may be a combination of lack of water, the wrong fertilizer or a fungus. None of the greens at Ruggles look particularly good at this point, but #14 is the poorest of them all. To make matters even worse, the geese have taken a liking to the area around that green. My playing partner, short of the green, chipped through that green and into the collar. The ball came to rest ON TOP of a piece of goose poop. No big deal, you say, lift the ball and remove the poop (a loose impediment), place your ball on the spot and make your next shot. Not so fast. The ball wasn’t on the green (it was close, but I don’t think it was on). If it were on the green, the set of tasks would be fine. Unfortunately for my partner, the standard set of rules don’t allow you to move your ball to remove the loose impediment, and he was with me. Our playing companions probably would have been fine with it, but as Steve said, he was playing with me and feared I would penalize him for picking up the ball. Steve ended up putting from the fringe and didn’t make great contact. Sad story. At least Steve won his singles match last night.
What can be done to ensure you don’t encounter the same issue? (A ball coming to rest on a pile of poop?) It’s pretty clear that this could happen. There was a pretty good flock on the 12th fairway last night and they do leave a lot of refuse. In the fairway we have a local rule that allows you to roll the ball, and that can get you out of that situation. I’m not sure the collar of the green is considered “fairway”, but extending that local rule would probably have gotten Steve out of trouble. The other possibility is to invoke a new local rule to deal with goose poop – and there is one suggested by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Edinburgh Golfers (the R&A):
Model Local Rule F-12
"At the player's option, dung from [specify dung from which relief would be given, e.g. goose dung, dog dung] may be treated either as:
[If dung is found on the putting green, the player may also use the greens switch/whip located by the putting greens to remove the dung from the line of play. If doing so improves the line of play or other conditions affecting the stroke, there is no penalty under Rule 8.1a.]
Steve still couldn’t have treated the goose poop as a loose impediment, but under this local rule (his option), he COULD treat the area as ground under repair, and he would have to find the nearest point of relief (no nearer the hole) and drop the ball in the semicircular area around that relief point. But, what happens if he drops the ball from knee height and now that pile of poop is between his ball and the green? Since it’s not lying on top of the poop, he can move the loose impediment out of the way. Adopting this local rule seems like it might be a good thing, but one thing has to happen first – the Committee must vote to adopt it. If I can remember this for the next captain’s meeting I will offer it for adoption.
The other rules issue involved yours truly. After mashing a drive off of the 16th tee I heard a weird sound in my follow-through. It was sort of like ice cracking in a glass. The club also got a lot lighter in my hands and I turned around to find that the head of my driver was laying on the tee minus the shaft. I was out a driver with 4 holes to go. Of course, our opponents were nice guys who offered up their own drivers if I wanted to use them, but I’d written that blog a few weeks ago about equipment and the 14-club rule. I knew that was a definite no-no. You can’t borrow anyone else’s club in competition under stroke play rules. I teed off with my 3-wood for the rest of the holes and didn’t play too badly with it and I went to bed knowing I’d played within the rules. My singles match didn’t go as well as Steve’s, but my opponent produced a beautiful round of golf posting a net 29. Not much you can do on nights like that but congratulate him on playing a good round.