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Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Thorbjørn Olesen Disagrees with Ruling During the second round of the BMW International Open, the Danish Pro, Thorbjørn Olesen, asked for a ruling when his ball placed at rest rolled back into the water whilst he was walking up to the putting green to assess his chip. Subsequently, he criticised; the official that gave him the ruling that he didn’t like, previous officials who he said had given him wrong rulings “so many times this year”, and the Rule itself.

The details were that following his second stroke on the 4th hole Olesen’s ball had landed unplayable in water. On taking relief from the hazard he dropped and re-dropped his ball, which on both occasions rolled back inside the hazard. He then tried to place his ball where it had first touched the ground on the second drop, but had trouble trying to place it at rest on the sloping ground. Eventually, after several tries, he did get it to stay at rest and so he removed his hand and walked up to the putting green. The ball then slowly rolled back down the slope, across the hazard margin and into the water. Apparently, a Rules official who had witnessed the placing wrongly thought that the ball could be replaced where it was without penalty, but this was subsequently corrected by European Tour Senior Referee, Andy McFee. The ball should obviously have been dropped again under Rule 26, for a second penalty stroke, but the fact that the official had advised Olesen that he could place the ball meant that he avoided the penalty of two strokes for placing a ball instead of dropping it.

At the time of writing there are three separate videos on this incident on the same web page at this Golf Channel link; 1. Olesen explaining the incident to Andy McFee, with a replay of the incident with commentary, which for a change was spot on, 2. Olesen describing the incident and his problem with it, and 3. Andy McFee explaining the ruling.

Local Rule re Accidentally Moving Ball on Putting Green
Has your Club/Society introduced the Local Rule relating to accidentally moving a ball or ball marker on the putting green? If not, why not? Both the R&A and USGA have recommended that all competitions should now be played with this recommended Local Rule operating. See this blog of mine for more detail. Remarkably, it seems that despite the extensive media coverage on this issue, at least one professional golfer who earns their living from the sport, did not take it in and presumably did not bother to read the Local Rules pertaining to the WGC Match Play tournament last April at Austin, Texas.

The circumstance of the incident was that following the first round group matches, Englishman, Tyrrell Hatton, was in a play-off against Spaniard, Rafa Cabrera Bello, and American, Charles Howell III, to see which of them was going through to the next round. As Hatton was lining up his short par putt on the first hole of the playoff he accidentally moved his ball. Wrongly assuming that he had incurred a penalty, he tapped his ball into the hole and walked off the putting green leaving the others to complete the hole and the playoff. Had he known, or remembered, the new Local Rule, or consulted with a Rules official, he would have realised that he should have replaced his ball where it was before he accidentally caused it to move, without incurring any penalty.

History of Rules Changes
If you ever have a reason to research when a particular Rule of Golf was introduced, amended, or developed, I recommend the ‘Historical Rules of Golf’ web site at this link.  Kudos to John Hutchinson and all those that assisted him with their contributions to this excellent resource.

Club/Society Quiz Night
Why not run a quiz night for your members? I have done all the work for you by;
Click here for details.
 
Tuesday, 13 June 2017

Tips on Match Play Rules