Rule the Course: from the wrong place
Monday, 3 October 2011
Graeme Scott is a rules official for the PGA Tour of Australiasia. If you would like to ask Scotty for some advice on a rule please email him here Recently in the Austrian Open, John Daly made headlines when he received a two stroke penalty after being advised by Rules Officials that he had played a stroke from the wrong place.
Having just recorded two birdies and putting himself in contention to make the cut, Daly proceeded to hook his ball into a lateral water hazard, resulting in the blood pressure rising and a penalty drop being required.
Unless the player is going to play the ball as it lies or drop the ball at the spot where the previous stoke was played, the point of reference for a lateral water hazard drop becomes the spot where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard. This can, at times, become a contentious issue when the player may believe that the ball has crossed land closer to the green than his fellow competitors or Rules Officials.
Daly took a drop relative to the position that he believed was his reference point and then played his next stroke. Now had the error been identified after he made the drop but before he played a stroke, the Rules would allow him to redrop the ball within the prescribed area without penalty (Rule 20-6).
If the player has made a serious breach when dropping the ball in a wrong place, the penalty for his actions becomes much more severe. A simple example of this would be when a player hits a 200m tee shot that rolls out of bounds and he subsequently drops a ball at the point where the ball crossed the boundary rather than applying stroke and distance and putting another ball into play from the tee. In this case the player has gained a significant advantage when completing the hole in that he has played his third stroke 200m closer to the hole.
A similar situation may occur in the case of a lateral water hazard when the ball crosses the margin of the hazard close to the tee but the player takes a drop from a point on the margin close to where his ball hit the water. If the Rules Committee subsequently decide that the player has committed a serious breach of the Rules, and has failed to correct the error before making a stroke from the next teeing ground, the player is disqualified.
In Daly’s case the Rules Officials did not believe that he had committed a serious breach of the Rules and hence a two stroke penalty was applied. However this seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and the big hitting American chose not to complete the hole, instead recording a “No Card Returned”.