Dropping from a hazard or penalty area

seochris

Challenge Tour Pro
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
Messages
723
Location
Wolverhampton and Mar Menor, Spain.
Visit site
Playing in a Stableford and one of my opponents hit his 3 wood into a red staked pond.

So he pick a ref point where it went in and went back 15 yards to the fairway to drop his ball which was nice and flat otherwise with the 1 club length rule he would have been in the nasty little down slope running into the pond. Was he correct as I he query it and he insisted that was ok.

Was he is he correct?
 

wjemather

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 3, 2020
Messages
3,650
Location
Bristol
Visit site
Playing in a Stableford and one of my opponents hit his 3 wood into a red staked pond.

So he pick a ref point where it went in and went back 15 yards to the fairway to drop his ball which was nice and flat otherwise with the 1 club length rule he would have been in the nasty little down slope running into the pond. Was he correct as I he query it and he insisted that was ok.

Was he is he correct?
As long as when taking 'back-on-the-line' relief, in choosing his reference point in the fairway, he kept the point where the ball last crossed into the penalty area on a direct line to the hole, and the ball remained within one club-length of the point it first hit the ground when dropped from knee-height, he was ok.

Also, it's 2 club-lengths for lateral penalty relief, not 1.
 

Colin L

Tour Winner
Joined
May 26, 2012
Messages
5,349
Location
Edinburgh
Visit site
If he dropped on the line from the hole through where his ball crossed the edge of the penalty area, he was correct no matter how far back he went. See Rule 17.1d(2).

The one club rule? If you take lateral relief under 17.1d(3), the relief area is two club-lengths.
 

rulefan

Tour Winner
Joined
Feb 21, 2013
Messages
15,056
Visit site
Playing in a Stableford and one of my opponents hit his 3 wood into a red staked pond.

So he pick a ref point where it went in and went back 15 yards to the fairway to drop his ball which was nice and flat otherwise with the 1 club length rule he would have been in the nasty little down slope running into the pond. Was he correct as I he query it and he insisted that was ok.

Was he is he correct?
Was he purporting to take Lateral Relief (ie to the side) or was he purporting to take Back on the Line relief (as described in post #2)?
 

wjemather

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 3, 2020
Messages
3,650
Location
Bristol
Visit site
Must have read it wrong then. it was a Golf Monthly article....

Note: The back-on-the-line relief area has changed since that GM article was published - it is now a complete one-club-length circle; the point where the ball first hits the ground when dropped becomes the reference point and the ball may come to rest nearer to the hole than that point as long as it remains within one-club-length (see https://www.golfmonthly.com/golf-rules/2023-rules-of-golf-updates-everything-you-need-to-know; although the article only shows unplayable relief, it applies to all back-on-the-line situations).
 
Top