Hedge Marks Course Boundary

[Hosel Fade]

Stakes are expensive, some countryside courses may have a couple of miles of hedge, and it is a very easy process.

An 8' length of 2x2 is 7 quid in a shop, surely significantly less for trade. Fair enough it would be a pain to paint and seal them but I also couldn't think of a single course with a couple of miles of OoB hedges. The entire perimeter of our place is under two miles

 

[Imurg]

A boundary hedge is no more in bounds than a boundary fence, stake, wall or painted line. Back to the Definition: the fence, stake etc defines the boundary; there is a point on whatever it is beyond which the ball is out of bounds; that is the point nearest the course. Join up the points and that is your boundary line. Your ball can be beyond that line but still on or within whatever is defining the boundary. You could easily find that your ball is beyond the inner side of a hedge but in the hedge. For example, see Decision 27-19
http://www.usga.org/rules/rules-and-decisions.html#!decision-27,d27-19

There seem to me many practical difficulties in working out what the boundary line is from the inner edge of a hedge. It is quite likely to be straggly and could be moving in the wind. It's probably not touching the ground and you have to determine what bit of it, if any, is vertically above your ball - and again it might be moving in the wind. Is a sticking out bramble briar part of the hedge? And so on. Defining it as the inside line of the hedge trunks improves on that for a line of conifers, but not much use for a privet hedge and potentially painful if it's hawthorn.

Then the Local Rule needs to be simplified and reworded.
Any mildly educated person, when faced with the word "beyond" will assume that what is meant is "the other side of"....
"A ball coming to rest within the extremities of the hedge is OB"....

 

[fundy]

Then the Local Rule needs to be simplified and reworded.
Any mildly educated person, when faced with the word "beyond" will assume that what is meant is "the other side of"....
"A ball coming to rest within the extremities of the hedge is OB"....

that would be far too straight forward Ian, they rather redefine words in the rules so that less than 1% know the rule correctly

 

[Colin L]

There is no redefinition of the word beyond. It is used in its normal sense. If your ball is beyond the boundary line (which is precisely defined), it is out of bounds. It's that straightforward.

 

[fundy]

There is no redefinition of the word beyond. It is used in its normal sense. If your ball is beyond the boundary line (which is precisely defined), it is out of bounds. It's that straightforward.

go and ask 100 golfers what they think beyond the hedge means and see how many agree with you

 

[Colin L]

Those who didn't agree would be those, like you, who are not taking the whole definition into account. You keep ignoring the clear description of the exact line beyond which your ball is out of bounds.

 

[fundy]

Those who didn't agree would be those, like you, who are not taking the whole definition into account. You keep ignoring the clear description of the exact line beyond which your ball is out of bounds.

and you keep ignoring reality. put that local rule on the wall in the golf club and 99 out of 100 will get it wrong, far easier to write the rule so that its clear to everyone rather than hiding behind descriptions in the rules for a simple word like beyond means!

 

[fundy]

Easy conversation. Is in the hedge beyond it? Not in the real world but yes in the rules of golf

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

go and ask 100 golfers what they think beyond the hedge means and see how many agree with you

I suspect that at my club maybe 1% of members (max) would consider OoB a ball lying in or under a boundary hedge (certainly 'course side' the hedge centre line).

Likewise I know that 99% of members would take relief from a staked tree that is part of a boundary hedge (dropping away from staked trees being a mandatory LR). But maybe the latter is OK if the ball is in bounds - and it is your swing that is impeded by the stake?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I suspect that at my club maybe 1% of members (max) would consider OoB a ball lying in or under a boundary hedge (certainly 'course side' the hedge centre line).

Likewise I know that 99% of members would take relief from a staked tree that is part of a boundary hedge (dropping away from staked trees being a mandatory LR). But maybe the latter is OK if the ball is in bounds - and it is your swing that is impeded by the stake?

And having now just read a response on the Out of Bounds Stakes post - if a tree/bush stake is within a hedge that is out of bounds, then the stake is out of bounds and so no relief is given - despite what a LR may say about it being mandatory to take relief from a staked tree.

 

[DCB]

Ah ... the joys of The Rules of Golf



Who put the ball in the hedge in the first place ... they have a lot to answer to

 

[rulefan]

If the LR says OB is "beyond the hedge" it means on the far side. How on earth can it mean "in the hedge".

 

[Colin L]

If the LR says OB is "beyond the hedge" it means on the far side. How on earth can it mean "in the hedge".

Your ball can be OOB in the hedge where, for example the LR says beyond the hedge and then defines the boundary line as being the inside line of the hedge trunks at ground level - as in your example from the former EG hard card. The critical thing seems to me to be for the Committee to be explicit as to where the actual boundary line is.

The more I think about this, the more messy it becomes. Hedges are just not mentioned in the Rules. My argument is that in the absence of anything else being said in an LR, the inner edge of the hedge should be taken as the boundary line because that is consistent with what is said of fences, stakes and painted lines where the line is on the inner side of whatever it is that marks the boundary and the object marking the boundary is itself out of bounds.. Where a fence post is on the course side of the fence, a ball can be OOB because it is completely over the line between the inner sides of the posts and yet not be beyond the fence itself; and a ball can be OOB while still sitting on the painted OOB line because it has passed the boundary line (i.e. the inner edge} even though it has not gone wholly beyond the painted line. On the same basis, a ball in a boundary hedge could be OOB because it has gone beyond the boundary line (if that is taken to be the inner edge of the hedge or it is defined as the inner edge of the trunks) and yet has not gone beyond the whole hedge . In contradiction of that, my understanding is that the R&A considers that a ball sitting on top of a boundary wall should be ruled to be in bounds because it has not gone beyond the wall, implying that it is the far side of the wall that counts. And if a boundary wall is thus on the course, why shouldn't it be an obstruction?

Fences, stakes and painted lines for OOB are easy - clearly defined and with Decisions to help. But if we are to take beyond in the case of walls and hedges to mean that the boundary line is the far side, this is in contradiction of what is established in the Rules for fences, stakes and painted lines. Confusing?

The proposed revision of the rules is something of an improvement (no mention of beyond !) but without any reference to growing things like hedges being used to mark boundaries. Maybe because it is a bad idea to do so, but as pointed out it does seem inevitable on some courses. But that's another story.

 

[rulefan]

Colin

It is not uncommon for artificially surfaced paths to bound the periphery of the playing area. Without having to disfigure a riven paved surface with white paint, local rules will often say that OOB is over or beyond the path. Would you understand that by mentioning the path in defining the margin, the path is automatically OOB? Or is it?

As it happens we have such a path but it is adjacent to a grip (shallow trench) and I simple wrote the LR as in or over the grip without pondering.