Practice on the course

[sawtooth]

I played in a Stableford the other day and decided to pick up as I could not score.

After a short walk down the fairway I decided to throw a ball down and play a shot into the green. BTW I don't think I've ever done this before in a comp.

It was just one shot and it was not in anyway slowing anybody up or causing delay.

I don't think it was a rule breach but a playing partner thought it could be. After checking the rule 7-2 , I'm not sure. It seems to imply that any strokes when the hole has already been decided ( I could not score) , was not practicing. Unless it means matchplay only but it didn't specifically state that.

Thoughts?

 

[clubchamp98]

I played in a Stableford the other day and decided to pick up as I could not score.

After a short walk down the fairway I decided to throw a ball down and play a shot into the green. BTW I don't think I've ever done this before in a comp.

It was just one shot and it was not in anyway slowing anybody up or causing delay.

I don't think it was a rule breach but a playing partner thought it could be. After checking the rule 7-2 , I'm not sure. It seems to imply that any strokes when the hole has already been decided ( I could not score) , was not practicing. Unless it means matchplay only but it didn't specifically state that.

Thoughts?

Sure this has been asked before.
answered by rules boffs but there was some debate as to the wording in the rules.
Might have been updated.

Think it went like “ you can practise on the last hole you played “
so if you pick up that’s your last hole and you can practice on or around the green but not in a penalty area.

Thats all I can recall.

 

[Steven Rules]

I played in a Stableford the other day and decided to pick up as I could not score.

After a short walk down the fairway I decided to throw a ball down and play a shot into the green. BTW I don't think I've ever done this before in a comp.

It was just one shot and it was not in anyway slowing anybody up or causing delay.

I don't think it was a rule breach but a playing partner thought it could be. After checking the rule 7-2 , I'm not sure. It seems to imply that any strokes when the hole has already been decided ( I could not score) , was not practicing. Unless it means matchplay only but it didn't specifically state that.

Thoughts?

Rule 7-2? I'm not sure what ancient text you are looking at. Grab a copy of the current Rules and have a look at 5.5a.

 

[Steven Rules]

5.5a
No Practice Strokes While Playing Hole

While playing a hole, a player must not make a practice stroke at any ball on or off the course.
These are not practice strokes:
*A practice swing made with no intent to strike a ball.
*Hitting a ball back to a practice area or to another player, when done solely as a courtesy.
*Strokes made by a player in playing out a hole whose result has been decided.

 

[rulefan]

5.5a
No Practice Strokes While Playing Hole
These are not practice strokes:
*Strokes made by a player in playing out a hole whose result has been decided.

Steven
It is interesting that the Mapping Summary Chart indicates that there is no difference in the outcome of old decision 7-2/1.7 when transferred to Rule 5.5a
If you still have your old Decisions, I would be interested in your take on the example in the answer.

 

[sawtooth]

So am I right in thinking that this line means that playing on (when I already picked up and couldn't score on that hole) is not a rule breach?

"Strokes made by a player in playing out a hole whose result has been decided."

Define result has been decided please, can that mean no stableford points possible

 

[Steven Rules]

Steven
It is interesting that the Mapping Summary Chart indicates that there is no difference in the outcome of old decision 7-2/1.7 when transferred to Rule 5.5a
If you still have your old Decisions, I would be interested in your take on the example in the answer.

Sorry. I am on holidays at the moment and a long, long way from my old Decisions books. Won't be reunited with them for another week or so. Maybe somebody else could step in.

 

[Steven Rules]

Define result has been decided please, can that mean no stableford points possible

Yes.

 

[salfordlad]

Steven
It is interesting that the Mapping Summary Chart indicates that there is no difference in the outcome of old decision 7-2/1.7 when transferred to Rule 5.5a
If you still have your old Decisions, I would be interested in your take on the example in the answer.

7-2/1.7 notes "continuing play of a hole" is not restricted to continuing play strictly within the Rules and "includes, for example, situations where a player plays a ball from a spot close to where his original ball went out of bounds or in the area where it was lost".
The OP states "after a short walk down the fairway, I decided to throw a ball down and play a stroke to the green". Who decides if that is continuing play or a hole or practice? The answer is the Committee - it is their job to make the judgement when the rules don't provide unambiguous answers and there are multiple rules that require such judgements. For me, this specific action is much closer to the nature of a practice stroke than to continuing play of the hole.

 

[rulie]

7-2/1.7 notes "continuing play of a hole" is not restricted to continuing play strictly within the Rules and "includes, for example, situations where a player plays a ball from a spot close to where his original ball went out of bounds or in the area where it was lost".
The OP states "after a short walk down the fairway, I decided to throw a ball down and play a stroke to the green". Who decides if that is continuing play or a hole or practice? The answer is the Committee - it is their job to make the judgement when the rules don't provide unambiguous answers and there are multiple rules that require such judgements. For me, this specific action is much closer to the nature of a practice stroke than to continuing play of the hole.

I would support the case where the player was continuing play of the hole when he through a ball down and played it - that action, imo, is very similar to the original decision. Others may take a harder line and penalize the player, but for what purpose?

 

[backwoodsman]

IMO the two posts immediately above highlight the problem? ie what is continuance of play.? Playing, say, shot 7 from where shot 6 landed I'd say is continuance. But picking up the ball, walking a bit, then changing your mind, dropping a ball and playing it smacks more of being a practice stroke. To me, it's the picking up of the ball that provides the adequate break to differentiate between 'continuance' and 'non-continuance'. Just glad I don't have to provide the definitive decision.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Without reference to the rules and decisions (not the right way to look at it I admit) my instinct is that we can’t do as the OP question suggests. Though his scenario is clearly about playing from a place in the General Area or rough, if he were allowed to do what he asks about he could drop one on the green and, whether deliberately or not, could provide another player with information on that player’s putt. And that doesn’t feel right. The ‘result of the hole’ to me covers all players completing the hole. Chuck a ball down onto the green once all players in a group have completed the hole, fine, but not before.

But that’s just my instinct and it’s the rules what count.

 

[rulefan]

After re-reading the old decision IMO the words "After a short walk down the fairway ..." are the clincher. Practice.

 

[Steven Rules]

7-2/1.7 notes "continuing play of a hole" is not restricted to continuing play strictly within the Rules and "includes, for example, situations where a player plays a ball from a spot close to where his original ball went out of bounds or in the area where it was lost".

Thanks for the reminder.

For me, this specific action is much closer to the nature of a practice stroke than to continuing play of the hole.

After re-reading the old decision IMO the words "After a short walk down the fairway ..." are the clincher. Practice.

I take a different view.

In my view, 'walking down the fairway' and tossing a ball down in that random spot is no different or less valid to walking forward to where the player thinks the ball is lost or out of bounds and tossing a ball down in that random spot.

In the ball lost or out of bounds scenario, the rigorously correct thing to do from a contunuity of play perspective would be to go back to the spot where the original ball was played and correctly drop a ball there under stroke and distance even though the player can no longer score on, or win, the hole. But no, Decision 7-2/1.7 allows the player to march forward an unspecified distance to where the ball might be lost or out of bounds and put a ball down there.

How is this any different to walking (a short way or an unapecified distance) forward and putting a ball down on the fairway?

The Decision is explicit that continuing play of the hole doesn't have to be strictlty in accordance with the Rules. As salfordlad says, there is judgement required as to the amount of leeway.

My judgement is that walking forward and putting another ball down on the fairway is ok.

 

[Colin L]

After re-reading the old decision IMO the words "After a short walk down the fairway ..." are the clincher. Practice.

That's bold. Could a short walk down the fairway not still be close to where the ball might have been. These are undefined terms. The situation of a search where a player tells the other two in his group he is giving up on the hole and to carry on while he has another look for his ball is not uncommon. If that player then walks forward 50 yards to where the others are playing from and drops a ball there rather than from where his ball might have been, thus avoiding a waste of time, would you have an issue about that? It's making a simple matter far too complicated. A player loses a ball or says he is picking up in stableford and continues to play out the hole, it matters not at all where he hits his ball from. The key word is continue.

Anyway, you pick up or give up on any hole in stableford you get zero points. You make a practice stroke after giving up and you get.......give me time to work it out ....... yes, zero points.

 

[salfordlad]

Anyway, you pick up or give up on any hole in stableford you get zero points. You make a practice stroke after giving up and you get.......give me time to work it out ....... yes, zero points.

It would be a general penalty for the next hole for practicing between holes if outside the parameters of 5.5b's Exception.

And on your 'it matters not at all where he hits his ball from', so you would be comfortable with a player going to an entirely unrelated place - say a greenside bunker - and dropping a ball and playing it? You don't see any case to consider that to be practice unrelated to continuing play?

 

[Colin L]

It would be a general penalty for the next hole for practicing between holes if outside the parameters of 5.5b's Exception.

And on your 'it matters not at all where he hits his ball from', so you would be comfortable with a player going to an entirely unrelated place - say a greenside bunker - and dropping a ball and playing it? You don't see any case to consider that to be practice unrelated to continuing play?

Before making that remark about a practice stroke not mattering, I searched, I thought thoroughly, for a statement to support the contention that the hole is completed when the player picks up, gives up after losing a ball etc. Not assiduously enough, however, as it is in plain view in exactly the place you would expect it to be:
The hole is completed when the player holes out, chooses not to do so or when their score will result in zero points.
21.1b(1)
I am losing my grip.

That fog being cleared up, I wouldn't accept picking up, walking on and eventually dropping a ball into a green side bunker as continuing play. Continuing is clearly the operative word but provided the player meets that condition I doubt if it matters where he does it from. If I lose a ball deep in the woods and walk 40 yards out of the trees and well on to the fairway to play another ball, or walk 60 yards down the fairway to catch up with the others and play from there so that no time is wasted, I think that would be fine.

Edit: For the avoidance of doubt, I am well capable of hacking a shot 40 yards into the trees and 60 yards short of the others' balls.

 

[rulefan]

The key word is continue.

If the player picks up after that stroke would you say he has 'comtinued'? Does he have to make any more strokes?

 

[Deleted member 25172]

18 posts in and, as far as I can tell, there’s not a general consensus amongst those who knows the rules better than us mere mortals.

I may have the rules app on my phone to check when out on the course, but even so I’m most likely making wrong interpretations more often than I’d like to think.

 

[rulefan]

18 posts in and, as far as I can tell, there’s not a general consensus amongst those who knows the rules better than us mere mortals.

I may have the rules app on my phone to check when out on the course, but even so I’m most likely making wrong interpretations more often than I’d like to think.

I think this is typical of a number of situations a referee encounters. The book cannot cover everything that may happen in the field. Much depends on the specific conditions and circumstances of the situation. More experienced referees and training (not available to others) helps.