Bunker rule confusion

Rlburnside

Rlburnside

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After having a look through the quick guide to the rules I am somewhat confused to the following.

Under Immovable Obstructions and Abnormal Ground Conditions Rule 24-2 and 25-1 it states a option when your ball is in a bunker, you may take relief from the condition by dropping the ball outside and behind the bunker under penalty of 1 stroke.

Then under Ball Unplayable rule 28 it states if your ball is in a bunker it must be dropped in the bunker with a 1 stroke penalty.

Now I understand these are two different rulings and I suspect the answer is to do with the wording of "the condition "but I'm struggling to understand the differance between the two.
 
Relief from an abnormal ground condition [AGC] comes without penalty. It is relief from a condition that you should not reasonably be expected to play from. You are expected to make a stroke to get out of a bunker and so you either get free relief from the AGC by playing from a place not affected by it or, you can drop your ball outside the bunker but with a 1 stroke penalty to compensate for the fact you haven't had to make a stroke to get out of it.

When you decide your ball is unplayable, it costs you 1 stroke to take relief. If you are in a bunker it costs you 1 stroke to get to play from a better place in the bunker. If you want to play from outside the bunker you again have to compensate for not having had to play from the bunker. The Rule at the moment compensates for that by making stroke and distance your only option. (That will change in 2019.)
 
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Colin L said:
Relief from an abnormal ground condition [AGC] comes without penalty. It is relief from a condition that you should not reasonably be expected to play from. You are expected to make a stroke to get out of a bunker and so you either get free relief from the AGC by playing from a place not affected by it or, you can drop your ball outside the bunker but with a 1 stroke penalty to compensate for the fact you haven't had to make a stroke to get out of it.

When you decide your ball is unplayable, it costs you 1 stroke to take relief. If you are in a bunker it costs you 1 stroke to get to play from a better place in the bunker. If you want to play from outside the bunker you again have to compensate for not having had to play from the bunker. The Rule at the moment compensates for that by making stroke and distance your only option. (That will change in 2019.)
Click to expand...
w

Thanks for the reply, I fully understand the unplayable rule, but still not really understanding the first paragraph,what circumstances could you get free relief from AGC in a bunker? and how could you play from a area not affected by it?
 
Rlburnside said:
w

Thanks for the reply, I fully understand the unplayable rule, but still not really understanding the first paragraph,what circumstances could you get free relief from AGC in a bunker? and how could you play from a area not affected by it?
Click to expand...

There might, for example, be a puddle (i.e casual water) or damaged area marked as GUR in the bunker. If it interferes with your lie or your stance you could drop without penalty in another part of the bunker where you were clear of that interference.
 
Ok thanks again, so just to clarify ,I knew if there is water in a bunker you can get free relief but must drop in the bunker, what I didn't know is you can under 1 stroke penalty drop just behind the bunker I thought you had to go back and reply the shot from the same position.

What still puzzles me is rule 24-2 Immovable Obsruction.
What possible Immovable obstruction could be in a bunker?
 
Rlburnside said:
w

Thanks for the reply, I fully understand the unplayable rule, but still not really understanding the first paragraph,what circumstances could you get free relief from AGC in a bunker? and how could you play from a area not affected by it?
Click to expand...

As Colin highlights, some bunkers are very large and it's entirely possible to have an isolated area of casual water in a bunker from which you may take relief without penalty if there is an alternative area unaffected by the condition, not nearer the hole and still in the bunker.
What you don't get is (effectively) relief from the hazard (bunker) when you have interference from a condition in the hazard.
Whilst this is pretty logical, the problems start when there isn't a valid relief option within the bunker and, to a lesser degree, when you have to drop a ball into soft wet sand. The ruling bodies are going to have another go at this next time - we will see.
 
Rlburnside said:
Ok thanks again, so just to clarify ,I knew if there is water in a bunker you can get free relief but must drop in the bunker, what I didn't know is you can under 1 stroke penalty drop just behind the bunker I thought you had to go back and reply the shot from the same position.

What still puzzles me is rule 24-2 Immovable Obsruction.
What possible Immovable obstruction could be in a bunker?
Click to expand...

Steps, and in the US they have a habit of putting carved rocks/boulders in some
 
 
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A slight deviation, but on a similar theme...

We have a greenside bunker that has been renovated. The whole bunker is marked as GUR - the line is marked about 18 inches outside the margin of the bunker. Relief from the renovated bunker - ie the GUR - is compulsory. A players ball lay in the sand inside the GUR.

Overheard at the weekend was a player telling his FC "yes, you get a drop, but you have to keep the bunker between you & the flag ...".

Am l correct in thinking that because the whole bunker was GUR means that just because it looked like a bunker was irrelevant. The ball was merely in GUR and not in a hazard, and the relief should have been taken using the NPoR - which in this case would have been to the side of the marked area and not behind the "bunker"?
 
You are correct. (Formerly, the committee had to designate the bunker as TTG, thus removing "bunker status", but that was dropped a few years ago and bunker status automatically is changed with GUR status) It's like the bunker just isn't there.

25/13

Bunker Totally Under Repair

If a bunker is being renovated and the Committee defines the entire bunker as ground under repair, the bunker loses its status as a hazard and is automatically classified as "through the green."
 
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Colin L said:
Relief from an abnormal ground condition [AGC] comes without penalty. It is relief from a condition that you should not reasonably be expected to play from. You are expected to make a stroke to get out of a bunker and so you either get free relief from the AGC by playing from a place not affected by it or, you can drop your ball outside the bunker but with a 1 stroke penalty to compensate for the fact you haven't had to make a stroke to get out of it.

When you decide your ball is unplayable, it costs you 1 stroke to take relief. If you are in a bunker it costs you 1 stroke to get to play from a better place in the bunker. If you want to play from outside the bunker you again have to compensate for not having had to play from the bunker. The Rule at the moment compensates for that by making stroke and distance your only option. (That will change in 2019.)
Click to expand...

Sorry for not fully understanding your explanation, your last paragraph states 1 stroke penalty for dropping in a better place in a bunker then goes on to say
you can take the stroke and distance option ,which from my understanding you could just play from behind the bunker.

So why would you take the option of dropping in the bunker when playing the much easier shot from just behind the bunker?
 
I think you may be getting mixed up with the option for relief from an abnormal ground condition in a bunker which is to drop on a line from the hole through where the ball lay as far back as you like. The option of stroke and distance means playing from where you last played, which is not "just behind" the bunker unless you happened to have duffed one into it from a close distance, or indeed as I have done, putted into a bunker! More often than not, you would be playing from far enough away for stroke and distance effectively to be a 2 stroke penalty.
 
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Colin L said:
I think you may be getting mixed up with the option for relief from an abnormal ground condition in a bunker which is to drop on a line from the hole through where the ball lay as far back as you like. The option of stroke and distance means playing from where you last played, which is not "just behind" the bunker unless you happened to have duffed one into it from a close distance, or indeed as I have done, putted into a bunker! More often than not, you would be playing from far enough away for stroke and distance effectively to be a 2 stroke penalty.
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Ok thankyou Colin we got there at last:thup:

But I must say it took some time reading in the rule book to get a full understanding of the rule, for the layman I would suggest it's not easy to comprehend sometimes.

Funny you should mention putting into a bunker yesterday I duffed a chip through the green into a bunker and I told my fellow competitors that I was going to replay the shot and not play out of the bunker, they were astonished you could do this.
 
rulefan said:
How many penalty strokes did you record?
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When I got to the bunker my ball was laying not to bad so I just played it out of the bunker, but if I would have replayed the shot I would have added 1 stroke penalty, sounds like your going to tell me it's a 2 stroke penalty :thup:
 
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