Advice from Caddie

[DannyGolf]

I have previously asked our australian brains trust for a ruling on this and it has gone to the Royal & Ancient but I suspect not all the information was provided to enable a fair ruling.

My situation arose from me (the husband), acting as a caddie (driver of the shared cart), providing advice to her while she played in a separate competition. I was playing my own competition at the same time, but a protest was raised against me providing advice. She had a H/Cap of around 33 at the time and still learning a lot of the fundamentals and strategies.

The question is whether I can provide advice if I act has her caddie while we both play in separate competitions using a shared cart?

 

[Slab]

Not sure I see how that could work under comp conditions, so many scenarios

i.e one obvious one being she has 10ft putt and you have 20ft putt on same line. You putt first in 'your comp' then acting as caddy you proceed to give her typical caddy advice on line & pace (but with full knowledge of what just happened to your 20 footer)

You’d be racking up so many penalties for your wife’s card for all your transgressions as her caddy (practicing etc)

 

[salfordlad]

"Rules dubious". This is the answer I got when raising this question with the good RB folk on the other side of the ditch. 10.3a/2 also affirms that a player during a round cannot be a caddie in the same competition, but that answers a different question (and clarifications are not intended to be rule-making anyway). There appears to be nothing that technically prohibits your situation, playing in one comp and simultaneously advising a player in a different comp, but this whole thematic seems fraught and, on my understanding, there hasn't yet been a meeting of the minds on both sides of the ditch on this issue. A significant reason behind this "dubious/fraught" response is the massive scope for conflicts of interest between a player being advisor and player simultaneously. With the best will in the world, it is difficult to see how there won't be ANY situations arising where the "caddie" learns things that assist their role as a player and vice versa. Issues like this are likely to be behind why there is no easy answer currently. If your current R&A request bears interesting fruit, we are all ears.