blue3715

1. Situation: Your ball finishes on the green, 15 feet away from the hole. The course is muddy from last night's rain, and so is your ball. Playing winter rules you lift and clean, then replace it. As you walk around the hole to study your putt, the ball, which is lying on a slope, rolls about five feet closer to the hole.

Do you put the ball back, play it in it's new position? Is there a penalty?

2. Situation: You hit your tee shot near the out-of-bounds stakes. One of the stakes has been knocked down by a recent storm. Your ball is in an area that is in bounds if the fallen stake is disregarded, or out of bounds if it is replaced.

Do you pretend the stake was never there, or use the current position of the laid out stake as the new OB marker?

answers.....

blue3715

#1. Response: Play the ball from where it stopped rolling, no penalty.

USGA Ruling: If the ball remained at rest for a few seconds, you play it from where it ended up after rolling closer to the hole. Once it is at rest, the ball is in play.

Neither gravity nor wind (the forces that might have moved the ball in this situation-are considered outside agencies) so the ball is not replaced. If you are lucky enough to have the ball roll into the hole, you are considered to have holed out with your previous stroke. However, if the ball didn't start moving until after you addressed it, you are considered to have caused it to move, are penalized one stroke, and must replace the ball.

My side note: Most (good) players leave the marker (coin) behind the ball as they walk around the hole. They don't lift the marker until they are ready to putt, thus the ball was never in play. So if it moved while marked, just put it back.

blue3715

#2. Response: Disregard the stake and play the ball as it lies

USGA Ruling: Generally, the stake should be replaced, which makes your ball out of bounds. However, in stroke play, if the committee is aware that one or more competitors have played from the same area ignorant of the missing stake, the altered boundary line should be allowed to stand for the rest of the competition (Decision 33-2a/19). In this case, you would play the ball as it lies.

If you do not know how the stake fell, you can reasonbly assume it was fallen for the entire field and can ignore the stake.

My note: Anyone ever hit a ball OB, only to have it be IB since the stake wasn't up, and the next two stakes make it in play?

spiders_wood

I wouldnt let anything go within 15 feet of my muddy hole thank you very much

Sloppy_Joe's_Soggy_Banana

situation: the ball lands on top of a car, wat do you do?

Well Gentlemen, in the rule book it says you are to hit the ball from were it lands yes, well in oder to acheive a great shot, drive the car onto the green right in front of the hole, and simply tap it in.

blue3715

the car can be considered a TIO (temporarily immovable obstruction) and you could get a drop (like landing on top of a score board).