Ruling please

[viscount17]

Just seen Ken Brown talking about marking your ball. He said that if the ball moves away from the marker when you replace it, it is in-play so you cannot re-spot it and you play it from where it lies - even if that is closer to the pin.
Can that be true?

 

[Basher]

I thought that was strange too!

Surely your ball marker marks the position until you remove it and take your stance.

 

[fairmorn308]

what he is meaning is for example. u replace your ball and remove marker. If the ball moves after u removed marker you play it from where it stops. Its only if you address the ball and it moves thats when u got to replace it and incur a penelty

 

[clubchamp07]

Fairmorn, to me that sounds like if what ur saying I'm reading right, is that if we had a down hiller we could replace the ball and give it a gentle nudge towards the hole and it would run that way. I always thought that if your marker is still on the ground the ball isn't in play, only after you lift the marker it becomes in play! Maybe I'm wrong!

 

[fairmorn308]

thats what i mean. if you remove your marker then the ball starts rolling then its in play. But if it rolls whil marker is still in place you will have to replace the ball

 

[RGuk]

Great minds think alike (and fools rarely differ!)

So next time you are on a wicked slope towards the hole, place the ball in a carefree and haphazard way, lift your marker and pray the ball starts moving.......towards the hole

Quality!!!

 

[Up_Point_1]

I’m sure something very similar happened to Phil Mickelson last year although he was just off the green at the time. I think it may have been the British Open. If my memory serves me rightly he was taking a penalty drop as his ball had come to land in some bushes by the green and it was unplayable. The nearest point of relief was on a bare patch of ground sloping steeply towards the green. He had to drop the ball 3 times as it kept rolling onto the green once it had landed. The third time it rolled away he then placed it where it landed (as you do). Once he’d got the ball to stay put on the slope the Referee declared it in play. As Mickelson then wandered around the green surveying his shot the ball started moving again and rolled some onto the green and some 15 feet nearer the pin. As the ball was in play and he hadn’t addressed it he was able to take his next shot from where the ball ended up with no penalty.

DHM.

 

[RGuk]

I have to say I find the whole "grounding the club thing" with putting a BIT SILLY. If I sit my driver behind the ball and for some reason, it falls off the tee....that's OK.(because the ball is not yet in play)
If I ground my putter and the wind or the vibration of something sends the ball on it's way.....I'm penalised.(because the ball is in play)

I think it time this rule was looked at.....if you are going to make lightening fast greens with fans underneath them (for goodness sake!) and drop back's into lakes with almost no grass, the players deserve some slack.

INTERESTING STORY.

My Dad met a guy (US business friend) who was at the 16th hole in 2005. He said Tiger's ball could have stopped a foot short and with all the jumping up and down of the crowd, would have started rolling again. Might be a bull story, but think about it....should players really suffer because the course has a few blatantly unfair characteristics.

 

[thecraw]

Some rules in golf are just plain crazy and stupid!

Trevor having to play out of a divot on the last was an insult and its a rule I still dont agree with. Being penalised for some lazy barsteward not replacing their divot or because some bird comes along looking for a worm or two under the divot is crazy.

 

[RGuk]

Being penalised for some lazy bar-steward not replacing their divot or because some bird comes along looking for a worm or two under the divot is crazy.

Beautiful.......that is music to my ears......

 

[stevelockie]

Some rules in golf are just plain crazy and stupid!

Trevor having to play out of a divot on the last was an insult and its a rule I still dont agree with. Being penalised for some lazy barsteward not replacing their divot or because some bird comes along looking for a worm or two under the divot is crazy.

I agree, easily the craziest rule in golf.

 

[viscount17]

thats what i mean. if you remove your marker then the ball starts rolling then its in play. But if it rolls whil marker is still in place you will have to replace the ball

that's not what KB said. he was saying in effect that the position of the marker has no bearing on the situation. the ball is not marked by placing a marker but by lifting the ball. similarly once the ball is placed it is in play, irrespective of whether the marker is still on the ground.