Rules Guy: My terrible tee shot landed INSIDE my golf bag. What now?
What do the rules say about a ball landing inside your bag?
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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.
The back tees were way back, so we dropped our carry bags by more forward tees. I thinned a low screamer that flew in the top of my bag and buried within. After we picked ourselves off the ground, my partners gave me a travelling mulligan for the laugh. But what’s the official ruling? — Dave Bowen, Rockingham, VA
Dave, you have good friends, and not taking oneself too seriously is surely a key to enjoying our crazy game.
This was quite the “self-own,” as the new crop of keyboard warriors might put it…but there was no penalty necessitated had you gone about things according to Hoyle instead of taking the obviously illegal traveling mulligan.
Since your ball came to rest in a movable obstruction, Rule 15.2a(2) lets you take free relief by dropping a ball in a one club-length relief area based on the spot directly underneath where your ball came to rest in the bag.
One question: Were you half in the bag when this happened?
For more drop-related guidance from our guru, read on …
Rules Guy: When it is legal to place the ball instead of dropping it?
I’m a longtime player with a pretty solid understanding of most rules, but this situation had me stumped. I know you can’t move a ball from of a divot hole. But what if, as happened to me for the first time in 30 years of playing golf, your ball ends up atop a detached divot, and thus sitting higher than the fairway grass? — Dennis Nicoski
As balancing acts go, this Titleist on a toupee is right up there with a bear on a unicycle.
The answer is far more common, indeed golf’s most common one: Play it as it lies, just as you would if your ball came to rest atop a pile of leaves.
You could, we suppose, instead get relief by taking an unplayable for a one-stroke penalty…but it’s a divot, not a landmine. Have at it and see what happens!
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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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