The Dustin Johnson Rule

There's a new local rule available that would have saved Dustin Johnson from a penalty in the US Open.  Your club may or may not adopt this local rule.

http://www.usga.org/rules-hub/2017-local-rule/new-local-rule.html

12/4/16 - Aviara

If you're going to hit a putter laying on the ground when you're hitting out of a bunker, I would recommend hitting your opponent's putter.  Per rule 19-3, if you hit an opponent's equipment, you can either play the ball as it lies (no penalty), or replay the stroke.

I hit my own putter.  That's covered under rule 19-2.  Play it as it lies, one stroke penalty.

So next time I guess I'll leave my putter further away from the trap.  Or hit a better bunker shot.

9/10/16 - Carlton Oaks

We had our monthly tournament at Carlton Oaks today.  One guy in our foursome hit a ball into the bank above a sand trap, and it came to rest against a rake on the bank.  It was clear that moving the rake would cause the ball to roll into the trap.

I consulted with our handicap chairman, who was in the group behind us, and he gave the correct interpretation.  Rule 24-1a says that a movable obstruction may be moved, and if moving the obstruction causes the ball to move, then the ball must be placed in the original position, and there is no penalty.

8/13/16 - Salt Creek

I had been told that there were some bunkers that were under repair at Salt Creek, which prompted me to send a summary to the club on Rule 25 - Abnormal Ground Conditions.

A ball in Ground Under Repair (GUR) is a free drop, but if you are in GUR in a bunker, you must drop in the bunker.  Alternatively, you can take a one stroke penalty and drop outside the bunker, on a line between the flag and the position of your ball in the bunker.

If the entire bunker is under repair, then you get the free drop outside the bunker (one club length from the nearest point of relief, no closer to the hole).

The course was nice enough to put a card in each cart summarizing your options.

For some bunkers they had a red drop area painted by the bunker.  I had never heard of that, but I guess it's a local rule for the course, under these conditions.

I never hit into a bunker that was under repair.  I did not play particularly well.

8/6/16 - Balboa

So this was an interesting one...

On the first tee, one player hit his ball way left, over some trees and onto the 18th hole.  I'm not sure if he announced that was hitting a provisional or not, but he hit another ball, landing in the fairway.  My tee shot also went left, but not as far as his.  From my ball, I saw another ball, which could have been his first one.  It was considerably further than his second ball.  I was going to tell him about it, but he was about to hit his next (fourth) shot.  It would have been rude for me to interrupt him about to hit the ball.

Per rule 27-2b, the provisional ball becomes the ball in play once he reaches the point where the original ball is likely to be.  But since his first drive was longer, he hadn't reached that point.  So I told him about the ball after his shot.  I'm pretty certain that even after playing a second shot with his provisional ball, he could have gone to his original ball and legitimately played a second shot per decision 27-2b/3.

He didn't bother.  He never identified the ball that I had found.  So I think he was fine playing his fourth stroke from the fairway and abandoning the first ball.  That ball was abandoned when he played the next shot with his (formerly) provisional.  That shot was a chip from just off the green.  He then two-putted for what I would say was a 7.  I have no idea what he wrote down.

7/31/16 - PGA Championship

I've never been a fan of "preferred lies," or as my club calls it, "lift, clean, and cheat."  But they did what they thought was best.

I'm not sure I saw any footage of a pro cleaning his ball in the fairway.  Were they not doing it very much, or was the telecast trying to downplay it?

7/27/16 - Admiral Baker North

This isn't a golf rule, but a club rule.  We give out a prize for low putts for every tournament.  What constitutes a putt?

If you use your putter from off the green, that does not count as a put.  So a recipe for getting low putts is to miss a lot of greens, but not by very much.  I'd rather have the GIR and a lower score than fewer putts.

If you use a wedge on the green (don't do that), then it's a putt.  PGA tour pros can get away with this.  You're not that good.

Once you've hit your first putt (defined as above), then every stroke after that on that hole is a putt.  So if you putt off the front of the green, and you have to chip back up, for purposes of counting putts, that chip counts as a putt.

Maybe your club does it differently.  I'd love to hear how you do it.

7/23/16 - Balboa

We're all used to moving loose impediments (small rocks and twigs).  I knew that you could not do so in a bunker, but it did not occur to me that you can't do it in any hazard until it was too late.  Rule 13-4.  So two bonus strokes for me!

I have a job now, which is seriously cutting into the frequency of my golfing.

7/9/16 - Mt. Woodson

Rule 26-1 says that if a ball is found in a hazard, or if it is known or virtually certain that the ball is in the hazard, then you can proceed under this rule (ball in hazard).  Otherwise, you must proceed under Rule 27-1 (ball lost).

On a short downhill par 4, I expected to find my ball on the right side of the fairway.  I didn't.  There was a hazard to the right, and my ball was probably in there.  But I was looking in bunkers, looking down the cart path, I really had no idea where it was.  So rather than assume that it's in the hazard, the rules say that you have to go back to the spot of the previous shot.

The lesson here (as always) is that it is never a bad idea to hit a provisional.  It beats the walk (or in this case drive) of shame.

7/8/16 - The Vineyard

It had been a long time since I had a double-contact on a chip.  Per Rule 14-4, that's a penalty stroke.  So in essence, each hit of the ball counts as a stroke.

Actually that last statement isn't accurate.  The rule says if you hit it more than once, then it's a penalty stroke.  So if you somehow managed to hit the ball three times on one stroke, it would only count as two strokes (one stroke plus the penalty).

7/7/16 - Mt. Woodson

You probably know that you have to tee off between and behind the markers on the tee box.  But how far back can you go?

Two club lengths (See the definition of Teeing Ground).

No one broke this rule during my round today, it just came up in conversation.

7/6/16 - Balboa (again)

Did you know that leaving the flagstick in when you are putting is illegal?  One of the guys I was playing with didn't.

Rule 17-3 (c)
The Player's ball must not strike the flagstick in the hole, unattended, when the stroke has been made on the putting green.

Two bonus strokes for a violation of this rule.

It's tough to beat $19 weekday twilight for Balboa.  This time of year it's really easy to finish before dark.

6/30/16 - Balboa

I played 18 holes with the same ball.  That's always nice.

Not much to report from a rules standpoint, but if you are dropping the ball, you have to do it from shoulder height, not waist height.

I'm probably getting pretty picky at this point.

Simulated Golf

I played a round on a simulator a couple of weeks ago, and I was wondering at what point it would be legitimate to post a simulated round for handicap purposes.  Your lie is always good on a simulator, and I haven't seen one that does putting very well, but at some point....

6/26/16 - Village Country Club

I was up in Lompoc for my high school reunion this weekend, and I got to play the Village Country Club.  I lived 2 miles from there in high school, but never played it.  It's suffering from the drought a little bit, but it's a nice course!

I was hit with the full Dustin Johnson on #15.  I placed my putter behind the ball before my stroke, and the ball moved.  Not just a fraction of an inch like DJ, but about a quarter turn.  So I got a bonus stroke on that hole!

6/21/16 - Torrey Pines South

I played TP South yesterday.  It was my worst round in a while, but I have to remind myself that it's a tough course (slope 133 from the white).

Not much came up with regards to the rules.  At one point, someone else marked my ball, which was in someone's line.  I was walking while everyone else was riding.  I'm fine with that in casual play, to speed up the game, but I was wondering if it was a violation.  As far as I can tell, this would be a violation of rule 20-1.  The player's partner can mark the ball, or "another person authorized by the player."  That would cover the caddie, but probably not another player.

As I said, it helped pace of play, and I'm fine with it.

While researching this, I found the decision below interesting.  This also happened during the round.
20-1/6.5
Ball-Marker pressed down by opponent
There is no penalty if the marker does not move.
There is no penalty if the opponent was authorized in this action.
If the opponent was not authorized, and the marker moves, then there is a one stroke penalty on the opponent.

Note to anyone interested in playing TP South - The work is done on the fourth tee, so it's back to being a beast of a par 4.

US Open

A link to my poll on DJ's penalty yesterday...

poll

6/18/16 - The Crossings at Carlsbad.

I took an on-course lesson today, and I learned that blue stakes mark an environmentally sensitive area. It plays like a hazard, except you do not have the option to play the ball as it lies. You must drop and take a penalty stroke. I think this is just a local rule for The Crossings, but other courses may use it.

Rancho Bernardo Inn

We played a better ball tourney at Rancho Bernardo Inn today. Not much from a rules perspective, other than one player in my group having to do the "ride of shame" due to his ball being unexpectedly OB. At least it wasn't the "walk of shame."

It never hurts to hit a provisional.

I think the handicap rules for this format are interesting:

• Men get 90% of their handicap, women get 95%.
• If partners are 8 strokes apart, or more, then both players get another 10% reduction

See Sec 9-4.b(ii) here:

http://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/Handicapping/handicap-manual.html#!rule-14387

Thanks to our handicap chair, Noel Alfonso for this info.

Mission Trails 6/10/16
I played the same ball for 18 holes, so very little to report from a rules standpoint today.  I played a provisional a couple of times, but never had to use it.
At one point I commented to my cart-mate that I wanted to use a 3-wood, but it was in my trunk.  He offered to let me use his.  I politely declined.  I chose my 14 clubs, and left the 3-wood in the car because I didn't think I would need it.

Riverwalk 6/4/16

Our club played a tournament at Riverwalk on the weekend, and there were a few interesting rulings in our foursome:

Nearest point of relief on a cart path
If you are a right handed golfer, and your ball comes to rest in the middle of the cart path, then your nearest point of relief is going to be on the left side of the cart path (assuming the cart path runs parallel to the hole).  Your stance is taken into account when determining the nearest point of relief.  The rule doesn't say nicest point of relief, it says nearest.
My ball was about 3/4 of the way on the right side of the cart path, and I took relief on the right side.  It was very close.

Ball Unplayable (but not lost)
One of the guys in our group hit his tee shot on a par three into a nasty area of scrub.  He then hit a provisional onto the green.  He spent a couple of minutes looking for his first ball, and he unfortunately found it. It was in a bush about waist high.  It was clearly unplayable.  Once he found the ball, then his provisional was no longer an option.  If he hadn't found his first shot (if he didn't looked very hard), then the provisional would be playable, laying three.
The nearest point of relief was further behind the nasty bushes.  That was an option, as was going back to the tee.  But the provisional is not a legal option in this scenario.

Unmarked Ground Under Repair
There were large areas of bare dirt in the fairway on several holes.  There was no marking indicating that it was ground under repair.  As far as I can tell from the definition of ground under repair, and from reading Rule 25, no relief is available.  Our group played this way, but other groups played it as ground under repair, even though it wasn't marked.  What say you?

Balboa - 6/1/16
Provisional, provisional, provisional!  That's my rule of the day.  It never hurts to play a provisional (Rule 27-2).  I sliced my tee shot OB on #8.  So I hit another one.  I was pretty sure that my second ball would be found and playable, but I wasn't certain.  So I hit a provisional.  I could see that one from the tee, so I knew that it would be playable.  When I got to where I thought my second ball would be, it was nowhere to be found.  It could have been under leaves, or it could have trickled through the boundary fence (though I didn't see it OB either).  So my provisional became my ball in play, and I was laying 5.  But at least I didn't have to do the walk of shame back to the tee box.
Per Rule 27, a lost ball is the same as out of bounds.  It is not the same as a ball hit in a hazard.  The penalty for a lost ball is stroke and distance.  You can't just drop one where you think the lost ball should be.