My Ball Came To Rest On The Seat Of A Greenkeeping Vehicle. How Should I Have Proceeded?
Do you get a free drop if your golf ball ends up on the seat of a buggy? If so, how do you go about taking one?
Strange things happen in golf.
Bernhard Langer once had to play a shot from up a tree in the third round of the 1981 Benson and Hedges International at Fulford Golf Club. Seve made a birdie from a temporary car park in the 1979 Open at Royal Lytham. Tiger once played a shot that ended in a kitchen service area at Firestone Country Club.
The golf ball can finish in some odd spots.
Thankfully The Rules (should) cover every eventuality you might encounter on the golf course. Even those strange ones.
That came to mind when we received an email from a reader whose ball ended up in a rather unusual lie. Here’s the email”
“Playing in a recent stroke play competition, I pulled a tee shot and couldn’t quite see where it ended up.
When we got down there we found it on the seat of a greenkeeper’s buggy. How it got there, goodness only knows. But there it was!
Question is – what was I supposed to do? Surely, I didn’t have to play it from there?”
An unlikely scenario, that’s for sure. But it can happen and the good news for our reader is that they were entitled to a free drop.
To proceed, the first thing is to ascertain whether the buggy was a moveable or immovable obstruction.
A movable obstruction is an artificial object that can be moved with reasonable effort and without damaging the obstruction or the course. A player can move a movable obstruction anywhere on or off the course.
An immovable obstruction is any obstruction that cannot be moved with reasonable effort and without damaging the obstruction.
If the greenkeeper was there, or if the keys were in the ignition and you were confident of moving/able to move the vehicle (without causing damage) – it would have been deemed a movable obstruction.
In that instance – Firstly you would have had a look where the ball was sitting above the ground and note the rough spot on the ground. Then after the movable obstruction (buggy) had been moved, the ball would have been dropped within a relief area - one club length from the estimated point where the ball had been resting on the movable obstruction, no nearer the hole. No penalty shot.
If there was no way to shift the vehicle, it would have been deemed an immovable obstruction. Under Rule 16.1, a player can gain relief from an immovable obstruction if it interferes with their lie, swing or stance and their ball is not in a penalty area.
With the ball sitting on the immovable obstruction in the general area, there is clear interference. So, you would proceed with taking free relief:
The player finds the nearest point of relief where the vehicle no longer interferes with their lie, swing or stance and a one club length relief area (no closer to the hole and in the same area of the course the ball original lie) is established from that point.
So, with your ball sitting on a greenkeeper’s buggy, you do get free relief. But how to proceed depends on whether that buggy is movable or immovable. It’s an important one to get right as it can impact on where you play your next shot from.
If you choose the incorrect option, you could end up playing from a wrong place and face a penalty!
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