Are you able to legally transfer a boundary stake if it is in your means?
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Not too long ago I discovered myself at a neighborhood golf course the place my ball landed in bounds however the out-of-bounds publish would hinder my swing. As I’ve carried out with a pink hazard publish, I pulled it out of the bottom, hit my ball and changed it again the place it was. My taking part in companion stated I incurred a two-stroke penalty because the publish was not in bounds and for that purpose couldn’t be moved. —Bob Wackerman, San Mateo, Calif.
Bob, your taking part in companion acquired the ruling right even when his rationalization wasn’t exactly on level.
Since it’s a boundary object, an out-of-bounds stake isn’t handled the identical means as a penalty-area stake. Boundary objects are thought of fastened and, underneath Rule 8.1a(1), is probably not moved if doing so improves one in every of your circumstances affecting the stroke, similar to your space of supposed swing.
Whenever you eliminated the stake, you had the possibility to keep away from penalty by changing it prior to creating the stroke (see Rule 8.1c), however when you made the stroke together with your space of supposed swing improved by the stake’s absence, you bought the final penalty of two strokes in stroke play or lack of gap in match play for a breach of Rule 8.1a.
Guidelines Man: My ball crossed a yellow-staked penalty space and fell again in. Now what?
Now that this reply has been, er, posted, we hope others received’t make the identical stake miss, uh, mistake.
For extra stake-related steering from our guru, learn on …
If a retention pond isn’t staked, is it nonetheless thought of to be a water hazard? —Paul Neubert, Surfside Seashore, S.C.
The Zen thinker Ty Webb as soon as stated, “A flute with no holes is just not a flute. A donut with no gap is a Danish.”
Equally (or maybe dissimilarly — it’s laborious to say), Resolution 26/3 clarifies that if a water hazard is unmarked by the committee it doesn’t lose its standing as a water hazard. Hit into it, and you’ll nonetheless take reduction underneath the water hazard rule … or, higher but, don’t hit into it.
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