backwoodsman
Tour Winner
Your advice please, on a proposal at our place, to install a drop zone on 16th.
Situation is that the green has water hazard (red) close down the left side. Also has bunker front right. Behind the green, crossing left to right, is a path and its only a few yards off the green. Behind the path is a narrow (ish) strip of "cabbage", - again just a few yards deep - and then its the boundary fence.
It's bad cabbage, so if you're in it, it's unplayable unless you are a true miracle worker. If you take relief for an unplayable ball, your options are limited. Cabbage stretches left & right so the 2 CL option won't really help. Neither will the " back on a line" option because of bounary fence. Unless you want to be hacking away until Christmas, you are pretty much limited to taking stroke & distance.
So, the questions are a) is it reasonable or justifiable under the rules to have a drop zone? b) is it necessary to define the area within which the ball must lie for the DZ to be available? (If so, how?) And the real clincher, c) is it possible to limit the use of the DZ only to shots played from a certain location?
(Proposal is that DZ is only used for shots thinned from the greenside bunker! Strange idea, l know. I can see a pace of play benefit of a DZ when an over-long 2nd shot is involved, but the bunker thing is just bizarre).
Thanks for reading this far - and appreciate your thoughts
Situation is that the green has water hazard (red) close down the left side. Also has bunker front right. Behind the green, crossing left to right, is a path and its only a few yards off the green. Behind the path is a narrow (ish) strip of "cabbage", - again just a few yards deep - and then its the boundary fence.
It's bad cabbage, so if you're in it, it's unplayable unless you are a true miracle worker. If you take relief for an unplayable ball, your options are limited. Cabbage stretches left & right so the 2 CL option won't really help. Neither will the " back on a line" option because of bounary fence. Unless you want to be hacking away until Christmas, you are pretty much limited to taking stroke & distance.
So, the questions are a) is it reasonable or justifiable under the rules to have a drop zone? b) is it necessary to define the area within which the ball must lie for the DZ to be available? (If so, how?) And the real clincher, c) is it possible to limit the use of the DZ only to shots played from a certain location?
(Proposal is that DZ is only used for shots thinned from the greenside bunker! Strange idea, l know. I can see a pace of play benefit of a DZ when an over-long 2nd shot is involved, but the bunker thing is just bizarre).
Thanks for reading this far - and appreciate your thoughts
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