Rules Guy: Is it legal to take a free drop from a dirt cart path with a concrete curb?

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

My home course has a dirt cart path, which my tee shot came to rest upon. With a concrete curb between my ball and the green, I decided to take a drop from the path. Can I do so without penalty? —Craig Twitchell, Chandler, Ariz.

A dirt cart path with a concrete curb? Aesthetic quibbles aside, under Rule 16.1b there is no free relief from a dirt path unless the Committee has defined it as an immovable obstruction. Per Rule 16.1a(1), the concrete curb will interfere with a player only for physical interference (lie of the ball, area of intended swing or area of intended stance) not for line of play.

Indeed, unless one’s ball is on the putting green, relief isn’t available for an obstruction that’s only on a line of play.

Rules

For more cart-path guidance from our guru, read on …

You take relief from a cart path. Your feet are still on the cart path, but you like the lie and choose to play the shot. Is that a penalty? —Tim Booker, via email

How does golf spell relief? C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E.

For a cart path, under Rule 16.1(b) interference includes the lie of the ball, the area of stance and swing. Even if only one of those things creates the original interference, you have to take relief from all of them to create the required complete (!) relief.

If you’re trying to take relief but are still standing on the cart path, you’re playing from the wrong place, per Rule 14.7, and you get the general penalty of two strokes in stroke play and loss of hole in match play.

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Got a question about the Rules? Ask the Rules Guy! Send your queries, confusions and comments to rulesguy@golf.com. We promise he won’t throw the book at you.

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