An obstruction is something that is artificial, except for walls, stakes, fences, etc., that define out of bounds. Growing trees, bushes, weeds, and such are natural objects and are not obstructions. They are part of the course. If an obstruction can be moved without unreasonable effort, without causing delay, and without causing damage, it is a movable obstruction.

To get relief for a ball lying beside a movable obstruction, you may move the obstruction. You do not get to lift your ball and drop it elsewhere. If the ball moves because of your moving the obstruction, you must replace the ball with no penalty.

If the ball lies in or on the obstruction, you may lift the ball and move the obstruction. The ball is then to be dropped as near as possible to the spot directly under where it lay in or on the obstruction, and not nearer the hole. You may clean the ball when so lifted.

If the ball is moving, an obstruction that might influence it, other than the flagstick or equipment of any of the players, may not be moved. The penalty for doing so is two strokes.

All this is in Rule 24-1. Now for the fun stuff.

An incorrect ruling regarding this rule helped Ernie Els win the U.S. Open at Oakmont in 1994. Els drove his ball into the left rough. His shot to the green was blocked by a camera tower. The tower was mounted on a tracked vehicle, which could have been moved without delay, but the tower was ruled to be an immovable obstruction (to be discussed next week). Els got a free drop to a better lie which most likely saved him a stroke on the hole. He went on to beat Colin Montgomery and Loren Roberts in a playoff.

Deep Rules: You may not hold onto the ball when you move an obstruction. That would be a violation of Rule 18-2a, and a two-stroke penalty would apply.

A ball can become lost in an obstruction, but there must be reasonable evidence that this occurred. A surmise is not good enough. Without reasonable evidence that the ball was lost in the obstruction, the ball must be treated as a lost ball. If the ball is lost in the obstruction, the obstruction is to be moved and another ball dropped as near as possible to the spot directly under the place where the ball last crossed the outermost limits of the obstruction, but not nearer to the hole.

See also Know the Rules: Immovable Obstructions

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When you hit a ball into a water hazard, the procedures can be complicated. It all depends on which kind of water hazard you hit into. They can be marked with either yellow stakes or red stakes, and the procedure for each is different. This week we will talk about hazards marked by yellow stakes. Water hazards marked by red stakes are lateral water hazards, which we will discuss next week. This is all in Rule 26.

The first thing to do is to determine whether or not your ball is in the hazard. If you cannot find your ball, the rules say it is a question of fact that it is in the water hazard. For example, you saw it go into the pond and splash, or you saw it roll toward the pond and disappear in weeds lining the pond. In the absence of such knowledge or virtual certainty that the ball is in the water hazard, you must call it a lost ball and proceed accordingly.

It is possible that your ball can be in the hazard, but not in any water. The boundary of a water hazard is defined by yellow stakes, and is the straight line connecting the nearest outside faces of adjoining yellow stakes. If your ball is inside this line, or even resting on it, your ball is in the hazard. The stakes themselves are inside the hazard, and are obstructions.

If you find your ball, you may play it without penalty. You may not ground your club in the hazard at any time before the stroke is made, and you may not remove any loose impediments in the hazard. If you do not find the ball, or you do but choose not to play it, you have two options (Rule 26-1). Both are accompanied by a one-stroke penalty.

You may go back to where the ball was originally played, drop another ball and play from there, or,

You may drop a ball behind the water hazard on a line connecting the hole and the spot where the ball crossed the boundary line of the hazard. You may go as far back as you like along this line to take your drop. [I once hit my tee shot into a pond and took my drop about twenty yards back, where there was much a much better lie available. I hit my 5-iron to less than a foot from the hole and tapped in for par.]

In both cases, you may clean your ball or substitute another one.

If the ball is moving in a water hazard, you may make a stroke at it, but you must do so without delay. You cannot wait until a moving ball comes to a more favorable position for the stroke. You may lift the ball while it is moving in the water in order to exercise one of the two options above.

Deep Rules:
(a) You are in a bunker and hit the ball over the green into a water hazard on the other side of the green, and the ball is not playable from there. You may either (1) go around to the tee side of the water hazard and play over the hazard after dropping a ball on the extended line between the hole and the spot where the ball crossed into the hazard, or (2) drop a ball in the bunker from where the original stroke was played. There’s a one-stroke penalty in each case.

(b) There was reason to believe your ball went into the hazard, but you couldn’t find it and played another ball under Rule 26-1. Then later find your original ball and it was not in the hazard. Unfortunately, when you made a stroke on the new ball, that became the ball in play, and the original ball became a lost ball.

(c) If a ball is lost near a water hazard, but there is no reasonable evidence that it is in the hazard, it must be treated as a lost ball if not found, not as a ball lost in a water hazard. That’s to prevent someone from avoiding the lost ball penalties, which are more severe than the water hazard penalties.

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It’s not unusual for a golf ball to wind up on a cart path. It’s also not unusual for a player not to know what to do.

A cart path is an immovable obstruction (See Obstructions, Definitions; Rule 24-2).

You get a free drop from the cart path, but it has to be taken at the right spot. That spot is based on the nearest point of relief. Many people think this point is off the side of the path closest to where the ball is resting, but that is not so. Remember that the nearest point of relief is the spot where the ball would lie when you take a stance, with the club you would normally use to hit the upcoming shot, in the direction you would be hitting it, and not be interfered with by the cart path in any way.

The best way to determine the nearest point of relief off a cart path is to establish a point of relief on each side of the path, marking each one with a tee, and then measuring from the ball to each point to find which point is the nearest to where the ball lies.

Once the nearest point of relief has been found, measure one club-length away from that spot, but no nearer to the hole, and put another tee in the ground. Use any club you like to make that measurement. If it’s your driver, take off the clubhead cover first.

Pick up your ball from the cart path and drop it so it hits the ground somewhere between the two tees and behind the line between them. As soon as you have a legal drop, play on.

If the ball rolls back onto the cart path, you must drop it again. If the ball rolls onto the path again, you must place the ball as close as possible to the spot where it hit a part of the course, usually the ground.

What happens if the cart path is right next to a bush, and the nearest point of relief is inside the bush, and one club length from it would be either inside the bush or in a place where the bush obstructs your swing? You can substitute “tree” for “bush” and the problem is the same. Those objects are not obstructions, but part of the course, so you get no further relief from them.

The answer is that you might be better off playing the ball as it lies on the cart path. Just because you can take a drop doesn’t mean you have to take a drop. Once you pick the ball up, though, you are obliged to drop it, so think about it first.

Once again:
1. Find the point of relief on each side of the cart path and drop the ball within one club-length of the point closest to the ball, but no nearer to the hole.
2. If it is difficult or impossible to play from there, you might have to play the ball as it lies on the cart path.

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There are times when you can drop the ball to get relief from an obstruction, or when putting a ball in play after a penalty has been incurred. We’ll talk about those situations later, but today I want to go over the procedures surrounding dropped balls. They’re not simple. Actually, just dropping the ball is simple. You hold the ball out at shoulder height and arm’s length, open your fingers, and let it go. Enjoy the ride down, because all the fun starts when the ball hits the ground.

Once the ball is dropped and comes to rest*, it is in play unless it: (this is straight from the rule book)

(i) rolls into and comes to rest in a hazard;
(ii) rolls out of and comes to rest outside a hazard;
(iii) rolls onto and comes to rest on a putting green;
(iv) rolls and comes to rest out of bounds;
(v) rolls to and comes to rest in a position where there is interference by the condition from which relief was taken under Rule 24-2b (immovable obstruction), Rule 25-1 (abnormal ground conditions), Rule 25-3 (wrong putting green) or a Local Rule (Rule 33-8a), or rolls back into the pitch-mark from which it was lifted under Rule 25-2 (embedded ball);
(vi) rolls and comes to rest more than two club-lengths from where it first struck a part of the course; or
(vii) rolls and comes to rest nearer the hole than:
  (a) its original position or estimated position (see Rule 20-2b) unless otherwise permitted by the Rules; or
  (b) the nearest point of relief or maximum available relief (Rule 24-2, 25-1 or 25-3); or
  (c) the point where the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard or lateral water hazard (Rule 26-1).

In any of these cases, you must re-drop the ball, without penalty. If the re-dropped ball does one of these things again, you must place the ball as near as possible to the spot where it hit the ground on the second drop. Fortunately, most of these cases are rare. The ones that occur most often are (v) and (vii).

Deep Rules: If the dropped ball comes to rest but then moves again, it is played as it lies without penalty. If the dropped ball is not recoverable, such as it rolls into a pond, another ball may be substituted.

All of this is found in Rule 20-2.

The penalty for an illegal drop is one stroke, but if the mistake is corrected before the ball is played, there is no penalty (Rule 20-6).

*More Deep Rules: “Comes to rest” is the operative phrase. The ball does not have to hit the ground. It only has to strike part of the course. If it comes to rest in a bush without hitting the ground, it is play. If it strikes a branch on the way down, it has struck a part of the course and in play where it comes to rest, except for (i) through (vii) above.

Practical advice:
Many times you will be dropping the ball onto less-than-ideal ground. Since the ball is held an arm’s length away from you, it’s hard to tell exactly where the ball will hit the ground and end up. You want to be left with the best lie possible within the limits the rules allow. You should therefore practice dropping the ball, so you can predict just where the ball will land. When it comes time to drop the ball on the course, you’ll know how to drop it on the best spot of ground, again, within limits, to increase your chances of getting a good lie after the drop. And no tricks. It’s a gravity-fed drop only.

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Perhaps the primary rule of golf is to play the ball as it lies. There are several circumstances, however, under which a player may lift the ball and drop it elsewhere to get relief from certain conditions.

Relief is often based on finding a reference point called the nearest point of relief, which is defined in the Definitions section. It is the spot nearest to where the ball lies, and not nearer to the hole, from where a player can make the stroke the player would have made from the original position had the interference from which relief is being sought not been present.

In finding this point, the player must simulate the address position and stroke, with the same club, and swing in the same direction, as if the interference from which the player is taking relief were not present. For example, if a player would have made a right-handed stroke with a 4-iron toward the green were the condition not there, that is the stroke he must simulate to find the nearest point of relief. The nearest point of relief from a particular spot might be different for a right- and left-handed golfer.

Determining the nearest point of relief can get tricky. If it appears that the nearest point of relief is an unplayable lie, such as tall grass, this does not change where the nearest point of relief is. In this case, the player might choose not to take relief and to play the ball instead from where it lies.

After finding the nearest point of relief, the player must hit the ball in the same direction that was used to find that point.

If playing from the nearest point of relief means a club different from the one used to determine the nearest point of relief is now a better choice, the player may use the different club.

It is possible that the nearest point of relief is inside an object, like a tree trunk, or cannot be physically determined because a barrier prevents taking an address position. In these cases, the player must estimate where that point would be if those complications were not there.

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This post is the beginning of a weekly review of the rules of golf. Every Friday I will go over one rule in detail so you know, really know, what that rule is and how it affects the way you play the game. The rules do three things for us. They make the game fair, they hold us accountable for our mistakes, and they make golf easier to play. Knowing them is part of being a golfer.

I will discuss only the most obvious and common occurrences. If an unusual situation warrants it, I will mention a Deep Rule – something that hardly ever occurs but can be confusing or has serious consequences if not handled properly.

Today’s rule is Rule 11 – Teeing Ground.

The teeing ground is the designated place from where you start play on a hole, but it is not the entire prepared area. That’s commonly called the tee box. The teeing ground is a rectangle defined by a line connecting the tee markers, and going back from there a distance of two club-lengths. You can measure with any club.

The most important rule is that the ball must be played from within the teeing ground defined above. You can stand outside it, but the ball must be inside it. If you play a ball that is outside the teeing ground, it is a two-stroke penalty and another ball must (must, not can) be played from within the teeing ground. Deep Rule: If this mistake is not corrected before the player tees off on the next hole, the player is disqualified. Deep Rule: If a ball played from outside the teeing ground goes out of bounds or into a water hazard, those penalties do not apply because that ball was not in play. Only the penalty and procedure for playing the ball outside the teeing ground applies.

I like to tee the ball about a foot behind the markers to make sure there is never a question here. You can also use the rectangle to your advantage. Say you’re on the tee of a par 3 and between clubs. If you want to go with the longer club, you can tee up at the back of the tee box and take two yards off the shot just like that.

If you knock the ball off the tee while addressing it, tee it up again without penalty. If the ball falls off the tee on its own, tee it back up with no penalty. If you swing at the ball and hit it while it is falling off the tee, the stroke counts, but there is no penalty. If you swing at the ball and knick it slightly so it rolls off the tee even a few inches, the ball is in play at that spot and may not be re-teed without penalty.

Tee markers are considered to be fixed and may not be moved for any reason (two-stroke penalty). Keep them there. Don’t touch them. After the first stroke, though, they are to be treated as an obstruction. If movable, they may be moved.

It has happened to me several times that I get to the tee box and there is only one tee marker, or the two markers are lying to the side of the tee box because the maintenance guy who mowed the tee box forgot to put them back. Now what?

When tee marker(s) are missing in a tournament round, a tournament official should be called to correct the situation before play continues. If one is missing in a casual round, estimate where the other tee marker should be according to the shape of the hole and play on. When both tee markers are missing or not in place, tee up next to the marker that is in the ground indicating the measuring point for the set of tees in question. In either of these two cases, though, call the clubhouse and let them know about it.

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