3/21/2021 - Coronado

Is the Pacific Ocean out of bounds, or a water hazard?  Specifically, right of #18 (though it's in play on other holes as well).  I didn't see any stakes (red or white), so I'm going to have to guess that it's out of bounds.  So stroke-and-distance.  The guy in our foursome who hit it into the ocean played it as OB.

The scorecard doesn't say one way or another.  I should have asked.

We've all seen the pros play off of the beach left of #18 at Pebble Beach.  So that means that the beach is in bounds, at least.

Update!

Our handicap chair pointed out this relevant definition of a Penalty Area (partial):

Any body of water on the course (whether or not marked by the Committee), including a sea, lake, pond, river, ditch, surface drainage ditch or other open watercourse (even if not containing water)

So the question still remains - Is the ocean on the course?

3/12/2021 - Torrey Pines North

On #12 (which is #3 these days because they are starting on the back), one member of our foursome marked his ball with a tee because he didn't have a ball marker.  It was close to my line, and I should have asked him to move it, but I didn't.  By my read, I needed to hit my putt just inside his tee.  I hit what I thought was a pretty good putt, with a chance of going in the hole, but it hit his tee and stopped dead about 2 feet from the hole.  The speed was really good, it would have stopped within a few inches of the cup, and had a chance to go in.  But it didn't.

As far as I can tell, no rules were broken here.  The rules of golf define a ball-marker as follows:

An artificial object when used to mark the spot of your ball to be lifted, such as a tee, a coin, an object made to be a ball-marker or another small piece of equipment.

I think a tee qualifies.  I would have certainly been within my rights to ask him to move it (Rule 15.3-c).  But I didn't.  So I had to hit my final putt a couple of feet, rather than a tap-in (or possibly even a birdie).

I was putting pretty well today (30 putts).  If I had it to do over again, I would have asked him to move it.

On the flip side, if I had hit it way too hard, I would have been glad that it hit his tee and stopped.

Another issue that came up is how do I post my score with a temporary green on #18, and a temporary tee on #1 (taking it from 395 yards to 216).  I'm waiting to hear back from our handicap chair on that one.