Gian-Marco Petrozzi Rule 13-2

[Deleted member 16999]

You’ve probably read the discussion in the Lounge.

Is there anymore clarification on what he was penalised for.

ie. It was the act of raking?
Or
Did he break the rule when he entered the bunker and the sand was pressed down?
Or
If he’d of left the footprints, played the shot and then raked the bunker, would he of been penalised.

Over to you more knowledgable guys please.

 

[doublebogey7]

Rule 13-2 states
A player must not improve or allow to be improved…
…his line of play or a reasonable extension of that line beyond the hole by removing or pressing down sand, loose soil, replaced divots or other cut turf placed in position, or

As the act of walking through the bunker clearly entailed pressing down sand, then I would suggest he would have been penalised regardless of whether or not he had gone on to rake the bunker.

 

[rulefan]

He apparently walked through the bunker which was in front of him to get a look at his target area which was over the brow. No problem there
However, when he walked back, he tidied up his footprints by raking the bunker. Seemingly he thought it was being courteous and was permitted to do it as 'caring for the course'.
But an exception to that is:
2. At any time, the player may smooth sand or soil in a hazard provided this is for the sole purpose of caring for the course and nothing is done to breach Rule 13-2 with respect to his next stroke.

His next stroke was to be over the bunker and 13-2 says:
A player must not improve or allow to be improved: his line of play

 

[doublebogey7]

He apparently walked through the bunker which was in front of him to get a look at his target area which was over the brow. No problem there

He apparently walked through the bunker which was in front of him to get a look at his target area which was over the brow. No problem there
However, when he walked back, he tidied up his footprints by raking the bunker. Seemingly he thought it was being courteous and was permitted to do it as 'caring for the course'.
But an exception to that is:
2. At any time, the player may smooth sand or soil in a hazard provided this is for the sole purpose of caring for the course and nothing is done to breach Rule 13-2 with respect to his next stroke.

His next stroke was to be over the bunker and 13-2 says:
A player must not improve or allow to be improved: his line of play

But rule 13-2 also you must not press down sand, which he almost certainly did when walking through the bunker so I would say he would have been penalised regardless of whether or not he had gone on to rake the sand.

 

[rulefan]

Pauldj42
I might be guessing at your age but my teenage grandchildren don't seem to know the difference between 'have' and 'of'' either

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Pauldj42
I might be guessing at your age but my teenage grandchildren don't seem to know the difference between 'have' and 'of'' either

Pauldj42, you are a teenager

 

[Deleted member 16999]

Pauldj42
I might be guessing at your age but my teenage grandchildren don't seem to know the difference between 'have' and 'of'' either

No mate, just illiterate

 

[rulefan]

Possibly. Neither the current decisions nor the new interpretations address 'worsening'. But the interpretations do try to distinguish between 'Likely and unlikely to Create Potential Advantage'.
I can't find anything in the news which confirms which was the offending action

 

[rulefan]

No mate, just illiterate

That's a big word for someone who is illiterate

 

[duncan mackie]

I've been trying to find any more detail on this because there is clearly more to it than the simple story presented.
Unfortunately the other thread was never going to end well with tangents and red herrings at every turn.
My reason for believing that there's more to it lies in the guidance in 13-2/0.5, specifically

"Examples of changes that are unlikely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a small pitch-mark, smoothes a footprint in a bunker or replaces a divot in a divot hole on his line of play five yards in front of his ball prior to making a 150-yard approach shot from through the green;
• whose ball lies in the middle of a long, shallow-faced fairway bunker, smoothes footprints five yards in front of his ball and on his line of play prior to playing a long shot over the smoothed area;
• ...."

and

"Examples of changes that are likely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a pitch-mark through the green or replaces a divot in a divot hole five yards in front of his ball and on his line of play prior to making a stroke from off the putting green that might be affected by the pitch-mark or divot hole (e.g., a putt or a low-running shot);
• whose ball lies in a greenside bunker, smoothes footprints five yards in front of his ball on his line of play prior to playing a short shot intended to be played over the smoothed area;
• ..."

Put another way, there is a degree of latitude in the rule (and probably enough to satisfy the baying wolves in the other thread).

Part of the problem seems to come from the media reporting giving the impression that his situation was closer to the top situations than the bottom.

We don't know the state of the bunker prior to walking and raking, the nature of the stroke relative to the bunker (was there a premium on keeping the ball short that brought the bunker into play more than might otherwise have been the case etc)
We don't even know who raised the matter and when!

What we do know is that it's rarely clever to tidy up on your line of play, and it's even less appropriate to create the reason to tidy up in the first place - he could easily have achieved any stated objective by going slightly to one side or the other of his line of play.

Edit...if I had waded through the rest of the 13-2 decisions I would have eventually come to 13-2/29 which states that a player isn't entitled to repair damage he has created, or as it puts it if you have worsened your line of play you can't repair it.
Which makes any assessment of whether he had actually improved his lie in the first place irrelevant...and also supports the argument that it wasn't quite as straightforward a situation as it first seemed.
Have to say it's a sensible rule - in most cases it's almost impossible to avoid improving the underlying situation when repairing something; certainly in the case of bunkers!

 

[backwoodsman]

Something not right with the web page, so I can't quote Doublebogey's post.

But the "pressing down of sand" is not an offence in its own right; it is only one of the examples of how one may not improve one's lie or line of play. Worsening one's line of play is not an intrinsic breach of the rules. I'd assume that creating great big hoof prints in a bunker is not considered the latter rather than an improvement of one's line of play?

 

[Sweep]

I've been trying to find any more detail on this because there is clearly more to it than the simple story presented.
Unfortunately the other thread was never going to end well with tangents and red herrings at every turn.
My reason for believing that there's more to it lies in the guidance in 13-2/0.5, specifically

"Examples of changes that are unlikely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a small pitch-mark, smoothes a footprint in a bunker or replaces a divot in a divot hole on his line of play five yards in front of his ball prior to making a 150-yard approach shot from through the green;
• whose ball lies in the middle of a long, shallow-faced fairway bunker, smoothes footprints five yards in front of his ball and on his line of play prior to playing a long shot over the smoothed area;
• ...."

and

"Examples of changes that are likely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a pitch-mark through the green or replaces a divot in a divot hole five yards in front of his ball and on his line of play prior to making a stroke from off the putting green that might be affected by the pitch-mark or divot hole (e.g., a putt or a low-running shot);
• whose ball lies in a greenside bunker, smoothes footprints five yards in front of his ball on his line of play prior to playing a short shot intended to be played over the smoothed area;
• ..."

Put another way, there is a degree of latitude in the rule (and probably enough to satisfy the baying wolves in the other thread).

Part of the problem seems to come from the media reporting giving the impression that his situation was closer to the top situations than the bottom.

We don't know the state of the bunker prior to walking and raking, the nature of the stroke relative to the bunker (was there a premium on keeping the ball short that brought the bunker into play more than might otherwise have been the case etc)
We don't even know who raised the matter and when!

What we do know is that it's rarely clever to tidy up on your line of play, and it's even less appropriate to create the reason to tidy up in the first place - he could easily have achieved any stated objective by going slightly to one side or the other of his line of play.

Edit...if I had waded through the rest of the 13-2 decisions I would have eventually come to 13-2/29 which states that a player isn't entitled to repair damage he has created, or as it puts it if you have worsened your line of play you can't repair it.
Which makes any assessment of whether he had actually improved his lie in the first place irrelevant...and also supports the argument that it wasn't quite as straightforward a situation as it first seemed.
Have to say it's a sensible rule - in most cases it's almost impossible to avoid improving the underlying situation when repairing something; certainly in the case of bunkers!

Strange that people think by moving a discussion to the rules section from the Lounge will change the nature of the discussion. Maybe they think the “baying wolves” don’t read the rules section. FYI there are no wolves or red herrings or any other form of menagerie. Just golfers trying to make sense of what is clearly, as is demonstrated here, a controversial ruling.
As I said in the other thread, if as Decision 13-2/0.5 says -
Examples of changes that are unlikely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a small pitch-mark, smoothes a footprint in a bunker or replaces a divot in a divot hole on his line of play five yards in front of his ball prior to making a 150-yard approach shot from through the green; Then does this mean that a bunker 5 yards in front of you “on your line” 150yds out is ok to smooth, but one 5 yards in front of you but greenside is not? Is it the length of shot that matters? For me, until this most golfers would not have considered something on the ground that they were planning to go over airborne as on their line. Mainly because that seems fair. As you say, it would have been nice to have seen a full ruling on this and have the full circumstances explained so that we, as golfers, do not make the same breach. In my view he got a bad ruling on a good rule and a ruling that makes our sport look daft. But that’s just my opinion and others are available. In the Lounge.

 

[rulie]

Strange that people think by moving a discussion to the rules section from the Lounge will change the nature of the discussion. Maybe they think the “baying wolves” don’t read the rules section. FYI there are no wolves or red herrings or any other form of menagerie. Just golfers trying to make sense of what is clearly, as is demonstrated here, a controversial ruling.
As I said in the other thread, if as Decision 13-2/0.5 says -
Examples of changes that are unlikely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a small pitch-mark, smoothes a footprint in a bunker or replaces a divot in a divot hole on his line of play five yards in front of his ball prior to making a 150-yard approach shot from through the green; Then does this mean that a bunker 5 yards in front of you “on your line” 150yds out is ok to smooth, but one 5 yards in front of you but greenside is not? Is it the length of shot that matters? For me, until this most golfers would not have considered something on the ground that they were planning to go over airborne as on their line. Mainly because that seems fair. As you say, it would have been nice to have seen a full ruling on this and have the full circumstances explained so that we, as golfers, do not make the same breach. In my view he got a bad ruling on a good rule and a ruling that makes our sport look daft. But that’s just my opinion and others are available. In the Lounge.

And don't talk about the "rulings" in football. For example, a player takes a dive and is awarded a penalty. That is certainly "daft".

 

[robinthehood]

Strange that people think by moving a discussion to the rules section from the Lounge will change the nature of the discussion. Maybe they think the “baying wolves” don’t read the rules section. FYI there are no wolves or red herrings or any other form of menagerie. Just golfers trying to make sense of what is clearly, as is demonstrated here, a controversial ruling.
As I said in the other thread, if as Decision 13-2/0.5 says -
Examples of changes that are unlikely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a small pitch-mark, smoothes a footprint in a bunker or replaces a divot in a divot hole on his line of play five yards in front of his ball prior to making a 150-yard approach shot from through the green; Then does this mean that a bunker 5 yards in front of you “on your line” 150yds out is ok to smooth, but one 5 yards in front of you but greenside is not? Is it the length of shot that matters? For me, until this most golfers would not have considered something on the ground that they were planning to go over airborne as on their line. Mainly because that seems fair. As you say, it would have been nice to have seen a full ruling on this and have the full circumstances explained so that we, as golfers, do not make the same breach. In my view he got a bad ruling on a good rule and a ruling that makes our sport look daft. But that’s just my opinion and others are available. In the Lounge.

Let it go

 

[Deleted member 16999]

Strange that people think by moving a discussion to the rules section from the Lounge will change the nature of the discussion. Maybe they think the “baying wolves” don’t read the rules section. FYI there are no wolves or red herrings or any other form of menagerie. Just golfers trying to make sense of what is clearly, as is demonstrated here, a controversial ruling.
As I said in the other thread, if as Decision 13-2/0.5 says -
Examples of changes that are unlikely to create such a potential advantage are if a player:

• repairs a small pitch-mark, smoothes a footprint in a bunker or replaces a divot in a divot hole on his line of play five yards in front of his ball prior to making a 150-yard approach shot from through the green; Then does this mean that a bunker 5 yards in front of you “on your line” 150yds out is ok to smooth, but one 5 yards in front of you but greenside is not? Is it the length of shot that matters? For me, until this most golfers would not have considered something on the ground that they were planning to go over airborne as on their line. Mainly because that seems fair. As you say, it would have been nice to have seen a full ruling on this and have the full circumstances explained so that we, as golfers, do not make the same breach. In my view he got a bad ruling on a good rule and a ruling that makes our sport look daft. But that’s just my opinion and others are available. In the Lounge.

I didn’t move the thread I posted the question, nobody is prevented from posting in here, but the facts are simple, the guys in here have a vast amount of knowledge and experience and deal in facts rather than speculation.
They also have contacts to the ruling bodies and may have more information.

 

[Sweep]

And don't talk about the "rulings" in football. For example, a player takes a dive and is awarded a penalty. That is certainly "daft".

I could not agree more. Diving and generally cheating in football has ruined the game and the fact that footballers are encouraged to do so by commentators and managers is ridiculous. Statements like “he touched him so he is entitled to go down” are just dreadful. It’s made a pantomime out of a wonderful game.

 

[Sweep]

Let it go

Let it go.