Colin L
Tour Winner
Good point - it wouldn't be the first time my kind of humour misses the mark by being taken literally.
Good point - it wouldn't be the first time my kind of humour misses the mark by being taken literally.
it wouldn't be the first time that someone's claimed relief from rabbit droppings either!
Didn't seve try this one?
On the many times that I ruled with Seve he had this fire, the Latin temperament and a fierce competitive spirit which is what made him so popular. For example, it was the final round of the final event of the 1994 season. Seve was tied for the lead with Bernhard Langer playing the 18th hole at Valderrama Spain and he had hit his ball behind a tree. At the base of this tree there was a fairly large hole and Seve was trying to claim relief from this hole by trying to convince me that this hole had been made by a burrowing animal.
I disagreed, and what followed was a fairly lengthy debate between us as he was trying to show me all sorts of little things on the ground which he was claiming were rabbit droppings and I wasn't agreeing. In the end I said "Sorry Seve there is no relief from here." So he chipped it out sideways and unfortunately he didn't win the golf tournament.
My question about the scenario described by Chris was whether a shot that would be highly unlikely to get a better result than a penalty drop could be regarded as "unreasonable" - suppose the best outcome would be to move the ball a couple of feet. Is it reasonable for a player attempt that when a penalty drop would gain him 2 club lengths?
Would free relief be justified in that case? It seems to me the only reason for proposing the shot is to gain free relief.
As previous, with there being no scrape would he be entitled to relief?
Do tree roots come under "abnormal ground conditions"?
a) where a stroke is impracticable (not impractical, but more of that later)
to the difference between impractical and impracticable. The rule uses impracticable because it is means an impossible shot. An impractical shot is possible but probably not very clever
1)I don't think the question of whether a player might be better off with an unplayable lie penalty than attempting a difficult shot is relevant to a decision as to whether he gets relief. He either has a shot and gets relief, or has no shot and doesn't, a judgement that is made only on where the ball lies and what the possibility is for playing it. If he doesn't get relief he has the choice of attempting the "impossible" or deciding his ball is unplayable.