Your queries resolved
On our 13th hole, one of my playing companions bunkered his second shot and was tight up against the back lip. He then played a nasty ‘thin’, which flew right over the green. Before going to look for it, he raked the bunker, leaving it as he found it. The ball had gone into dense long grass and could not be found, so it was back to the bunker to drop a new ball. But it had now been raked! Is that not preferring one’s lie? I know that if I leave a bunker shot in the sand, I cannot clean up from my first shot in case I leave it in there again. Should the bunker have only been raked after the ball had been found?
Roger Whitaker, Kendal
Q
The difference here is that the ball has been played out of the bunker with the initial stroke. After a ball in a bunker is played and is outside the bunker, you are entitled to smooth sand in the bunker to care for the course without penalty. This is the case even if the ball comes to rest outside the bunker and the player needs to take stroke-anddistance relief by dropping a ball back in the same bunker.
Chris Wallace, R&A Rules manager
A
One hole on our course has a path running down the far side, which is not a course boundary. If the ball is on the path closer to the hedge side, what are my relief options? You could possibly get your feet off the path on that side in some places, but the hedge is mostly very close. Where you can get your feet fully off the path, it isn’t
Q reasonable, or is impossible, to make a swing in the hedge. Does this make the hole side the nearest point of relief? Many at my club say relief would be in the hedge due to the position of the ball, so the only real options would be a two club-length unplayable drop to possibly get onto the hole side, or to risk chipping your club on the stony path.
Jigger, GM website forum
There are some misconceptions about nearest point of relief, such as the belief that you are entitled to a good lie when dropping, but this is not the case. When you have interference from an immovable obstruction such as a cart path, you may take relief from the cart path under Rule 16.1. But your nearest point of relief won’t necessarily mean ‘nicest point’. Sometimes it may actually be less appealing to take a drop than playing it from where the ball lies as, in your case, the drop would most likely be in a hedge.
A