Rules Guy: How long can you wait for a ball to drop in the hole in match play?

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 birdie putt came to rest on the cup’s edge and my opponent quickly conceded a par. Do I still get a reasonable amount of time for the ball to drop in for birdie? —Philip Frazier, Montgomery, Texas

As Orson Welles might have advised, “accept no gimme before its time.”

You still get the reasonable time to reach the hole and the 10 seconds to see if the ball falls in.

While there is no penalty on your opponent for making the fast concession (and maybe trying to pull a fast one on you), if the opponent gets a little quick with their fingers and lifts the ball before that time, the Rules treat the ball as being holed by the stroke under Rule 13.3b.

Google “Madelene Sagstrom, 2021 Solheim Cup.”

Rules

For more match-play guidance from our guru, read on …

A four-ball match. Our opponents get to the tee ahead of us and hit. Inadvertently, I hit from the next box forward, which they duly noted. I rehit from the correct tees and played on, making a 5. Our opponents said my score was 7 for hitting from the wrong tees. Is that right? —Dennis Derby, via email

Your opponents weren’t obligated to tell you that you were about to play from the wrong tees, sportsmanship aside. Maybe they didn’t realize until too late … or not.

Still, they confused the relevant rule for match play, Rule 6.1b(1), with the one for stroke play, Rule 6.1b(2). In this case in match play, the opponents get the choice of whether they want to cancel your stroke and require you to play from the correct tees; if they don’t cancel, you just play out the hole, penalty-free, even from the wrong tees. In stroke play, you indeed get a two-stroke penalty and are required to correct your mistake.

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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.