TOPICS NEWSLETTER - South Florida PGA Golf

education
rules with drew
Serious Breach
SFPGA TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR ANDREW MILLER
Back in October the Nationwide Tour invited me to
work the Winn Dixie Jacksonville Open presented
by Planters which took place at TPC Sawgrass on the
Valley course. This was the last full field event on the
schedule before the top 60 players on the Nationwide
Tour competed in the Tour Championship the following
week. This experience, similar to my other ones
with the Tour produced some very interesting rulings
that I wanted to share in this month’s segment.
During round three of the championship I was monitoring
pace of play near the par three fifth hole when
I noticed some players huddled on the fourth green
with their caddies. The situation perked my interest
so I decided to inch my cart down the hill towards
the green. One of the players looked up, saw me and
waved me over. I got out of my cart, walked over to
the players and asked if they needed some help. One
of the players told me he had marked the position of
his ball, lifted it, cleaned it and then replaced his ball
behind another players ball mark. He made a stroke at
the ball from that position and then realized his mistake.
I said, “Ok, you’ve just played a ball from a wrong place
and must continue play with that ball played from the
wrong place adding a penalty of two strokes to your
score.” The player nodded his head in agreement and
said, “For whatever reason I was excited to hit my putt
and just didn’t pay any attention to whose ball mark
I was placing my ball behind.” I then asked, “Well,
where is your ball mark?” He pointed to his ball mark
which was a good 10 feet away from (further from the
hole) where he had putted from.
I was sort of stunned at his response and a little embarrassed
that I didn’t ask that question first. I told
the player that since he had putted from a spot significantly
closer to the hole than where his ball lay, he
was guilty of a serious breach of playing from a wrong
place. I saw the look of concern on the players face
when I said the words, “serious breach” and immediately
told him it was ok. I told him his stroke played
from a wrong place did not count and that he must
pick up his ball played from the wrong place and
place it behind his ball mark adding a penalty of two
strokes to his score. Normally a member of the committee
is not available to determine on the spot if a
player was guilty of a serious breach. So, if this were
to happen to you or a member at your club, Rule 20-7
tells us that, “If a competitor becomes aware that he
has played from a wrong place and believes that he
may have committed a serious breach, he must, before
making a stroke on the next teeing ground, play
out the hole with a second ball played in accordance
with the Rules.” The player must then report the
facts to the committee upon returning his scorecard.
Later that day I was patrolling on the par five eighth
hole when a player waved me over. His ball was nestled
among some bushes and trees on a severe slope.
He told me he wanted to declare his ball unplayable
and needed some help with his options. I told him
he could either go back to where he had just played
from (the tee), drop his ball within two club lengths
no nearer the hole than where the ball lay or drop a
ball behind the point where the ball lay, keeping that
point between the hole the spot on which the ball is
dropped, with no limit to how far behind that point
the ball may be dropped.
The first option really wasn’t good because that
was over 300 yards away and the third option really
wasn’t good either because the area where he would
have had to drop was a dense forest. So he chose the
second option and measured the two club lengths
back up the hill toward the fairway. Before dropping
he asked at what point would he be permitted to redrop?
I told him he would be allowed to re-drop if his
ball rolled more than two club lengths from where
it first struck a part of the course. He nodded his
head, raised his arm to shoulder height and dropped
his ball. As the ball was trickling back down the hill
towards the area from where he just took relief the
player started to bend down and extended his arms
as if he wanted to stop the rolling ball. I immediately
told him, “No. Don’t stop the ball; it hasn’t rolled
more than two lengths yet.” He pulled his hands
back and let the ball come to rest just short of the
area from which he was taking relief.
We went through the process of measuring to determine
whether the ball rolled more than two club
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