Lining myself to the target.

[Beedee]

This is a hypothetical question that I've wondered about for a while. I'm confident of some answers but get less confident further down the list. Are all of these ok?

1. On the tee I place my ball a couple of feet behind a handy weed / imperfection / something else natural and already there, and use that to line myself up.

2. On the tee I place my ball a couple of feet behind the edge of a FC's divot with a nice straight edge aimed right at the hole.

3. A FC has left a broken tee in the ground I use that to line myself up.

4. Same as above but it's my PP.

5. Same as above but it's me instead of someone else. I know I can't place the tee there and use it to aim, but what if I'm playing 3 off the tee, or taking a provisional and don't remove the tee from my first attempt.

My gut reaction is that 1-4 are ok, with 4 being only ok as long as we haven't agreed to do it. But 5 would be wrong.

 

[Colin L]

Generally, you may not place anything in order to indicate your line of play and leave it there while you make your stroke. On the putting green you may not place a mark to indicate your line of play at all. [Rules 8-2a and 8-2b] Placing is the deliberate action of putting something there that wasn't there before and it has to be placed for the purpose of indicating the line of play to be a breach.

In none of the above situations did you do that. In each case you used something that was already there and did not breach the Rule.

 

[backwoodsman]

Generally, you may not place anything in order to indicate your line of play and leave it there while you make your stroke. On the putting green you may not place a mark to indicate your line of play at all. [Rules 8-2a and 8-2b] Placing is the deliberate action of putting something there that wasn't there before and it has to be placed for the purpose of indicating the line of play to be a breach.

In none of the above situations did you do that. In each case you used something that was already there and did not breach the Rule.

As above.

In all five cases you are about to make a stroke, and the course is in the state it is, covered in marks, debris, leaves, whatever. If the rules permit you descretion as to where to place the ball (as they do for three-off-the-tee) then you may place it anywhere within the limits allowed by the rules. Just remember, the breach is to place a mark to indicate the line of play. You're not doing that. You're placing a ball.

Or another way of looking at it, is when you placed your tee in the ground to make your tee shot, were you placing it to indicate then line of play of your third shot? I don't think so ...