Ruling – whose responsibility?

[Imurg]

Here is the 'local rule' - verbatim:

A ball lying on a closely mown area, through the green, may be marked, lifted cleaned and placed within 6 inches, not nearer the hole
A ball embedded in it’s own pitch-mark, through the green, may be lifted, cleaned and dropped as near as possible to where it lay but not nearer the hole.

As I read it, embedded on the fairway, must be placed; embedded in the rough, must be dropped.

I've always thought this sort of local rule to be totally unfair. A plugged ball in the rough can be cleaned and dropped - as long as you drop it in the right place you're not badly off. A ball pitching on the fairway, picking up a lump of mud the size of Wales and rolling into the rough can't be cleaned. That's just basic unfairness. Much fairer to "roll" the plugged ball out of its plug and play it as it lies.

 

[SammmeBee]

So that is 2 local rules then:

1) A ball lying on a closely mown area, through the green, may be marked, lifted cleaned and placed within 6 inches, not nearer the hole

2) A ball embedded in it’s own pitch-mark, through the green, may be lifted, cleaned and dropped as near as possible to where it lay but not nearer the hole.

Depends which one you want to/can apply to your situation....you might even use 2 if your ball was plugged in the fairway and then apply 1 but being sensible you choose to prefer your lie on the fairway when plugged instead of taking relief from the plugged ball....

 

[Region3]

Here is the 'local rule' - verbatim:

A ball lying on a closely mown area, through the green, may be marked, lifted cleaned and placed within 6 inches, not nearer the hole
A ball embedded in it’s own pitch-mark, through the green, may be lifted, cleaned and dropped as near as possible to where it lay but not nearer the hole.

As I read it, embedded on the fairway, must be placed; embedded in the rough, must be dropped.

As above, I'm reading that as 2 separate rules.
If your ball is plugged it doesn't matter if it's on the fairway or not, you can lift, clean & drop.

The only difference being that if you're on the fairway you can then mark and 'prefer' it within 6 inches after the drop, or more sensibly just mark and move to start with.

 

[balaclava]

As I said above, if everyone who asked his marker for a ruling (showing doubt) played two balls the game would grind to a halt and if they all then submitted each incident for a committee ruling the backlog would bring the whole club to a grinding halt. I suspect that whoever it is that drew up the two ball rule did it for those situation where the player was in genuine doubt or where his marker disagreed. I suspect that rule maker presumed that where a player and marker agree that would be the end of it (as it is 99.999% of cases). Yes the rule book does cater for most situations but not all and in those situations I suspect that it is presumed that common sense would prevail and in a game where first prize was a £10 voucher the supreme court of appeal would rule that there were more important things to bitch about.

Thanks to all for the help in talking it through