Unnecessary correction of tee shot confusion

[cliveb]

Asking this on behalf of my wife, who is competition secretary for the ladies section...

In a stroke play competition, one of the ladies accidentally teed off from the yellow tee on a hole, when the ladies were playing from the red tees. Her FC said that she had played from the wrong place and so she played another tee shot from the red tee. HOWEVER... as it happens, the yellow tee today was less than 2 club lengths behind the red tee, so she hadn't actually teed off from the wrong place.

I think the ruling should probably be that her first tee shot was OK, but because she put another ball into play (even though she didn't need to), she was then 3 off the tee. Is that correct?

We are yet to ascertain whether she added any penalty strokes for her imagined incorrect tee shot, but if she didn't (ie. regarded her second tee shot from the red tee as the first shot on the hole), then she will have returned a signed card with too low a score. Does that mean she is DQ'd, or am I right in thinking there is a new rule that if you sign for a low score and don't know it's wrong, then you just get a 2 shot penalty?

To add extra confusion, this was a par competition (not medal), so would the 2 shot penalty mean she has to deduct 2 from her overall par score, or does the 2 shot penalty only apply to that single hole (in which case it would convert a half to a loss)?

 

[williamalex1]

I think her 1st ball would have been ok, but once she puts a 2nd ball into play it's 3 off tee, unless she invoked and followed rule 3-3.
Not sure about the answer to the rest of the question though.

 

[backwoodsman]

Par comps are a form of stroke play, so although the original shot (from yellow) was legit (due to the distance), the second ball played off the red was her third shot. If she scored counting three off the tee, then all fine. Not familiar with bogey & par comps, so if she counted the second ball off the red as one off the tee, then don't know if it would be loss of hole or dq. Although presuming it would be loss of hole?

 

[cliveb]

Par comps are a form of stroke play, so although the original shot (from yellow) was legit (due to the distance), the second ball played off the red was her third shot. If she scored counting three off the tee, then all fine. Not familiar with bogey & par comps, so if she counted the second ball off the red as one off the tee, then don't know if it would be loss of hole or dq. Although presuming it would be loss of hole?

We haven't had a chance to ask her yet, but it seems very likely that she did count her second tee shot as one off the tee. (Knowing the lady in question, it seems highly unlikely that she birdied the hole with her second ball).

Reading rule 6-6d, my interpretation is that because she didn't know she had signed for a wrong score she is not DQ'd but instead incurs an additional 2 stroke penalty.

What I'm not clear about is whether that additional 2 stroke penalty applies to the specific hole (in which case it makes no difference because she has already lost the hole once we correct her score to take into account 3 off the tee) or whether in a par comp she must deduct 2 more points from her overall score.

 

[pogle]

You are correct that if she didn't know she had incurred a peanlty then no DQ and 6-6d applies. In par or bogey competitions, you don't get an additional two shot penalty, but rather a deduction of one hole from the total score. This is to prevent the extra penalty becoming immaterial. However, if the player "lost" the hole, then no penalty is applied.

See Rule 32-1 , Note 3.
"Note 3: If the competitor incurs the additional two-stroke penalty provided in the Exception to Rule 6-6d, that additional penalty is applied by deducting one hole from the aggregate of holes scored for the round. The penalty the competitor failed to include in his score is applied to the hole where the breach occurred. However, neither penalty applies when a breach of Rule 6-6d does not affect the result of the hole."

 

[backwoodsman]

As par comps are played hole by hole (are they not?) then I'd assume it would simply be loss of hole?

 

[Colin L]

Clive,

I don't see the Exception to Rule 6-6d as being applicable here if the player counted what was in fact her 3rd shot (S&D) as her first. Although her error included failing to record a penalty, it also included the failure to include an actual stroke. The penalty for recording a score lower than you made is disqualification if it is the result of your failure to count a stroke. It is only if the failure is to include a penalty you didn't know you incurred that the Exception can be applied.

In a situation where it was just a failure to apply a penalty, that penalty is applied to the hole but the additional penalty in a par or bogey competition is the deduction of one hole from the aggregate for the round. In stableford, the additional penalty is the deduction of 2 points from your total. In any of those formats, there is no penalty at all if the breach made no difference to the result of the hole. For example, if you record an 8 at a par 4 that should have been a 9 because of a breach of a rule you didn't know about, there's no penalty.

Make Rule 32 your bedtime reading!

 

[cliveb]

I don't see the Exception to Rule 6-6d as being applicable here if the player counted what was in fact her 3rd shot (S&D) as her first. Although her error included failing to record a penalty, it also included the failure to include an actual stroke. The penalty for recording a score lower than you made is disqualification if it is the result of your failure to count a stroke. It is only if the failure is to include a penalty you didn't know you incurred that the Exception can be applied.

OK, understood.

But does the fact that at the time she thought that her initial tee shot (from the yellow) was invalid, and therefore did not constitute a stroke, have any bearing? Basically she thought she'd teed off outside the teeing ground and so corrected the mistake, but forgot to record the two stroke penalty which she didn't know would apply.

All in all it's kind of academic as she scored -7 overall. She probably won't care whether that gets changed to -8 or DQ!