The VSGA Tournaments Department covers Finding & Identifying Ball, Play the Course as You Find It, Playing the Ball as it Lies and Ball in Motion Deflected
Good afternoon everybody it’s 12 o’clock and we are about to start our third session of our virtual series we hope everybody has enjoyed their time spending with us um either at their lunch hour or in the evening uh learning a little bit more about the rules uh we
Appreciate your participation and uh for those that have uh been on with us for all three weeks uh you made it and we’re excited to have had you and for those that may be their first time welcome and we hope that uh you find this session
Very informative and uh you come join us for one of our future sessions which uh stay tuned to your email we will be having uh full day sessions being promoted here very shortly at a few areas of the state and uh we hope that if you found this helpful we’ll dive a
Little bit deeper into some of these roles during that session um we hope that uh that you will join us then but for today’s session we are going to be focusing on uh four rules so finding and identifying the ball rule seven uh playing the course as you find it in rule
Eight and playing the ball as it lies in in rule nine and then ball in motion deflected in in rule 11 um these are pretty uh heavy rules um a couple of them we hope that you don’t have to use in rule 7 and 11 there’s two
In the middle there that um you use all the time uh whether you know it or not in rule eight and Rule nine um we’re happy to take uh your questions here live on the presentation Amanda Kelly will be handling those questions and U we will keep those at a pretty high
Level um but all of your questions will be be answered one way or the the other either online or uh direct followup um via uh email email or if you hang out at the end uh from Amanda or myself but let’s go ahead and jump into rule s
Which is H finding and identifying the ball um so the player is responsible for finding their ball in play you’ll see there’s a few different ways that can happen but ultimately it is up to uh the player themselves as to makeing sure that ball is theirs and playing it um
Because if you don’t then that responsibility is yours and you may get penalized for playing a wrong ball if it is not your ball um but you are entitled to several different ways in uh achieving that task of finding a ball if you happen to be in a case where you
Need to search for it um so there’s a couple of different phrases and and words that are going to be used throughout this presentation you know what is fair and what is reasonable we’ll see those uh frequently throughout the presentation um and to to summarize
It um it’s put it in layman’s terms it’s you know what makes the most sense you know could there have been another way that is less intrusive you know could you have done it any other way to not you know move more things out of the way
Or break something was there a better way to do it and more times than not this will be very obvious as to what’s reasonable and what’s not what’s fair and what’s not uh ultimately it could come down to a judgment call if you’re playing in a tournament that rules
Official or Committee Member um head golf professional whoever the case may be in charge of that committee will just have to make that call if there there is a gray area of having to really find out what actually happened and make that call um but essentially what is fair and
What’s reasonable um can be very obvious as to U what that player can and cannot do so if you are searching for your ball you are allowed to move sand and water I’ve never heard of anybody moving water to find their Ball but it’s there in
Case you do need it uh you’re allowed to move or bend natural things and other objects we’ve covered in in other rules prior to this presentation you can also break those things but again only if those uh objects are broken as to what may be considered reasonable to find or
Identify uh the golf ball one thing I will point out on this slide is that if you do have to move sand to find a ball so you have a ball buried in a bunker you’re entitled to move that sand to find it if you do find the ball even if
The ball moves uh there’s no penalty uh but you do have to recreate that lie in that sand if you don’t then you would encour a general penalty but uh if you do recreate that lie if it was completely buried by sand you are allowed to leave a small amount visible
In order to make that stroke um so that’s one thing I do want to point out there uh involving a ball in sand uh next uh just to highlight you know the moving bending breaking of things we we see a a long uh defined uh term actually two of them what is to
Improve and conditions affecting the stroke we’re going to talk more about that in rule eight up next um but if you do happen to improve one of these conditions affecting the stroke just kind of put that in your uh back pocket for now and we’ll cover that on the next
Section um if the Improvement results from what is reasonable or Fair there is no penalty for that um even if there was uh Improvement if it was in a fair reasonable search there’s no problem however if you do cross that line and it becomes something extra to where it was
Not considered reasonable or fair then you do get the general penalty under 8.1 which again we are we will cover uh on the next section on the next rule but keep in mind if it’s fair and reasonable no problem even if there was slight Improvement the the rule rule seven kind
Of overrides rule eight in this case to where we the rules do want you to be able to find the ball even if certain things happen you kind of you know quote get lucky to improve um slightly um the rules are going to allow you to find
That ball that way it’s not a lost ball and there’s uh more penalties um Coming thereafter so now you found the ball and you need to identify it so I mentioned the three ways that the rule say uh it could be by obviously yourself finding that ball seeing your identifying mark
On the ball that’s why the rules say you should put identifying mark on the ball that’s not a must that’s a should if you see the word must that means that’s an instruction and more times than not there’s going to be a penalty if not carried out you see the word should
That’s a uh something I would say a strong encouragement it might save you from receiving a penalty down the line um but you should put that identifying mark on the ball uh if it’s found by someone else so the example in the rule book is you know you have a a spectator
Up ahead or someone sees a ball landay in a tree or in a branch to where you you can see a ball up there The Spectator says yes I saw that ball land right in that spot that is your ball then you can use that that players’s that information gathered by The
Spectator and use that to determine if it’s your ball or not that’s acceptable um and then the third bullet point uh even if you don’t have an identifying mark on the ball if you know you’re playing a Titleist two and you have an idea of the condition of the the
Ball there’s no other ball in the area uh then that is fine too uh but if you get down to the the last part of this slide if you do find an identical ball so I’m playing a Titleist 2 with no identifying Mark there’s another
Titleist 2 in that same area now I don’t know if that ball is which ball is mine and which one is someone else’s so now we have a lost ball situation even though we know one of them is mine we can’t determine which one uh exactly is
So now I have to go back stroke broken distance so that’s why that that should could have saved me in that case because if my tius 2 had my blue circle on it which I use to identify my ball then uh I would have saved myself a strok and
Distance penalty in the rare case that I use a blue circle and another player uses that same blue circle and we can’t identify which ball is ours then unfortunately that’s another case where it is a stroke and distance but those are very few and far between so it is
Important to have a kind of unique identifying that way there’s no confusion there next if you have to lift the ball to identify it that is perfectly acceptable within the rules uh there is a procedure which has to be follow that’s a must so you find a ball in any
Area U and you need to lift it to identify it uh the ball must first be marked and also you cannot clean it um more than needed to identify it uh there’s a few cases where in the rules where you can have a ball in your hand
And you’re not allowed to clean it this is one of them under rule seven uh the other three so there’s four total it is to see if it’s cut or cracked so if you’re if the ball had needs to be substituted because it’s damaged that’s another case where it cannot be cleaned
In the balls in your hand because it’s interfering with play so someone asks you to move the ball out of their way you cannot clean it in that case and to see if it lies in a condition where relief is allowed so you’re trying to determine if another rule would apply um
You’re not allowed to clean the ball unless let’s say that you do find that your ball’s in granite or repair that rule says you are allowed to clean it but until you know for a fact that another rule applies in which case you are allowed to clean that ball those are
The four times that uh it cannot be cleaned now in this slide there’s three bullet points here this is part of our procedure so uh player finds a ball needs to identify it um they forget to mark it they lift the ball when they don’t need to identify it
So it’s very obvious it’s their ball and I see my blue circle on it for some reason I pick it up um or I do everything I need to identify it I Mark the ball I lift it up and then I clean the entire golf ball all the mud off of
It um those are all three cases in which I’m going to receive a one-stroke penalty for not following that procedure in the correct way so once you uh mess up one one of these go ahead and mess up all of them because it’s all one penalty stroke you’re not going to get three
Separate one stroke penalties for this procedure so let’s say you forget to Mark the ball you pick it up now you know you’ve got a one stroke penalty might as well go clean it because it’s all part of that same procedure we’re still in that same situation it’s not
Going to be cumulative penalties here so let’s say we we find uh or in an area where we need to find our ball and the ball is accidentally moved during search this was a nice change a few years ago uh there used to be a penalty
Involved here but now there’s not so if we are in the process of searching for our ball whether it be our own ball could be an opponent’s ball or someone else’s ball um as long as we’re in the middle of that search and haven’t found the ball yet if it’s accidentally moved
There’s no penalty in that case so I’ve highlighted the word while on this slide because that is one of our kind of hidden definitions we have lots of defined terms in in the rules which I know that Amanda and Kent have hit on the last two weeks and the importance of
But there’s also these hidden or internal definitions so when we say while that means that there is a beginning and an end as far as when we are uh involved in a search so if we are the example that they give in the book
If we uh hit our ball into a uh a wooded area and we’re walking up to that area uh that we think our our ball um landed in um but we don’t know that our ball hit a tree and came back into the rough so we are not actively searching we’re
Just casually walking up to an area that we think we’re not in that period of while searching so if we do happen to step on the ball just uh out of coincidence um that would be a case where we would still be penalized because that is not while searching um
And the other on the end part of it we are searching for a ball we found a ball now we need to take that process to identify it once we’ve identified it uh it’s no longer in the in the quote while period so now other rules would apply
That we’ll get to in rule nine as far as if we do move our ball and and what to do depending on who moved it and so on um but in any case the the ball must be replaced on its original spot and and then move forward with that next
Stroke Amanda do we have any questions on rule seven so far no no no questions yet Perfect all right so now we’re going to go to rule eight this is a rule that if you know it or not you use for every single stroke that you make because
There are implications for what you can and cannot do for that next stroke and we’ll start with a a big defined term which is our conditions affecting the stroke or cats I’ll shorten it from from here on out so cats are five things and each of these italicize and underline
Also have their own definition so conditions affecting the stroke that’s a defined term each of these five also have their own defined term so a lot of The Players Ball at rest we see that picture down bottom left uh pretty self-explanatory the area of intended stance so that highlighted area in
Yellow so it it it includes our feet obviously but it also includes our body position in that stance so so includes where that where we are going to position our body so it’s obviously our feet but does go upwards to include our body and then next our a of intended
Swing we’ve highlighted that in yellow because it includes the back swing and also the follow through and that the entire circle of where our club May uh be during that stroke next the line of play we have that highlighted because it’s not just a direct line it’s where want the ball to
Go it also includes uh an area on either side to include where the ball might go because we all know that we’re not we’re not perfect and even though we want the ball to go a certain place there is a uh area for Mar margin of error there and
It also goes upwards too and then the fifth one is our relief area relief areas were included in the in the revision of the rules in 2019 so it includes an area um as called the relief area that we will drop or uh maybe place a ball when the rules do require or
Allow us to do so so next another uh definition that we need to highlight is what it means to improve so this is another one that when you see the the definition in Webster’s Dictionary uh versus the rules of golf uh there’s some slight um difference
There so we need to do something to the conditions affecting the stroke or other physical conditions which we’ll see in 8.2 uh which means you know we got our cats the cats only apply to our next stroke so when you have the ball um in
Play or not even the teeing area we have our conditions affecting the stroke that’s for that very U that exact situation but the other physical conditions mean where our ball might come to rest so we have a ball that uh is close to a bunker it’s in a tough lie
We might you know not hit the the best shot in the world might go in the bunker so if you go over and rake those Footprints those would be an example of other physical conditions that you cannot uh improve in rule 8.2 um the other part of it is gaining a
Potential Advantage so when you improve an area you know the Websters version would say okay you’ve improved it you know penalty automatic U the the next part of that in the r of golf is you have to gain a potential Advantage for your for that next stroke so if you are
Taking notes if you want to write down there’s a a few a couple clarifications 8.1 A1 and 8.1 A2 that are going to give examples of what it means to create a potential advantage and not so the example that I always like to give so I I’ve got a
Divot in front of my ball that lies 250 yards away from the hole I’m using using a three-wood you know I’m a decent golfer I’m going to take a full swing in a three-wood I go replace a divot that’s five yards in front of my ball well in
That case I have not gained a potential Advantage because one way or the other my Ball’s going to go well past that uh that divot and whether or not I uh improve that uh divot has no impact on that next shot so I did not gain a potential Advantage for that next shot
Um but now so I’ve hit a decent shot with my three-wood and lies just in front of the green I’ve got another divot in front of my ball which now I’m going to actually putt that ball and I replace the divot so this situation changes uh dramatically because now if
I’m putting the ball and it’s going to go potentially through that divot that is a huge potential Advantage by replacing that ball so we’ve got two exact same situations in that we’ve got a ball in the Fairway a divot just in front but because of you know kind of
Expanding that that stroke what what it is going to follow U one one case we’ve gained a potential advantage and the next one we we have not so there is uh more info that needs to be gathered when when looking at this so here’s our allowed actions and I
Put reasonable uh in quotation because uh most of all of these include what would be considered reasonable so fairly searching for your ball we cover that in rule 7 uh removing movable objects we’ve already covered that and what’s reasonable in removing a loose impediment or a movable obstruction uh
What’s reasonable to Mark lift and replace the ball grounding your Club lightly as part of the game if uh if you do ground your Club lightly which means to you know just that the the ground or the grass just supports the weight of the club you’re not pressing anything
Down uh too heavily that is obviously reasonable uh to firmly place your feet to take a stance again all within within reason so this player in the bottom right in this uh tree so you can tell that he’s done a pretty good job of getting in there taking a stance and all within
Reason he could have very easily used his arms his body his feet to move those branches out of the way but he didn’t so that is very reasonable and if he exceeded that then we would get into you know we’ve got an improvement it wasn’t within reason and now we may have a
Potential penalty uh if there was a better way to do it U fairely taking a stance um you know that is something that again involves some uh subjectivity and more times than not it’s going to be very obvious did you you know use your leg to
Move a branch out of the way use your elbow or body to do so um but in rare cases we have to get involved and make those rulings next again in our allowed actions um when making a stroke so it includes the back swing so I’ve got a
Ball in a tree I know I can’t break branches to improve that area ahead of time but if I make a back swing and I improve that area by breaking several branches off and I complete That Swing uh that the rules are going to say
That’s fine now if I take a back swing and I break all the branches and I discontinue so I haven’t actually made the stroke now I have improved or might may have improved and I’m going to get a penalty potentially for for doing that so it’s actually making the stroke and
That doesn’t include any practi Strokes or anything like that so just be very careful that if you are in that situation that if you are think you’re going to break stuff on your back swing go ahead and complete that stroke because there could be a penalty involved making improvements in the
Teeing area know Amanda covered this and week one in this picture here that’s Laura Davies and her uh usual uh te which is uh slamer or driver in the ground creating a little divot and putting the ball up on on that tea the teeing area is a very sacred or special
Place that allows you to do certain things that you can’t do otherwise this is one of them uh smoothing sand in a bunker after playing from it so take that very literal so you have a ball in a bunker you’ve played the ball out of that bunker even if it happens to be
Backwards forwards whatever the case may be you can smooth that sand and touch it without restriction even if the your next stroke is uh would include going over that bunker through the bunker but you play out of the bunker so it is on your line of play this is one that you
Just take it for exactly how it’s written you’ve played out of the bunker you’re now completely out of it you can smooth sand without any restriction so that’s one that took me a minute to wrap my head around um but it take it very literally there U you can make certain
Improvements on the putting green another area that is very uh specific and what the rules are going to say you you can and cannot do obviously we can uh tap down Spike marks now we can repair ball marks again on the putting green we can remove sand and loose soil
From the putting green and nowhere else so another area that is a one of our defined areas of the course and there’s certain permissions that you can do on the pting green that you cannot do uh anywhere else uh moving a natural object to see if it’s loose that happens very
Rarely but if uh if it’s loose you can obviously remove it if it’s not and has to be um put back to its uh its normal State now we get into our prohibited actions so got two categories of these prohibited actions there’s a couple that are fixable and then a couple that are
Not so let’s start on the right side and and determine the the items that are not fixable so if you alter the surface of the ground we’re outside the teeing area here uh not fixable because it’s just simply probably going to be impossible to restore it exactly how it was uh
Removing or pressing down sand or loose soil again cannot you know put that back in its exact spot and then removing D Frost or water uh again all Within These those cats or those other areas covered by rule eight um but then going to the left left side so we do something that
Is a prohibited action and and that does involve an improvement in rule eight um but there’s a couple things that within the rules that are going to allow us to kind of backtrack and fix those so if you move band or break any fixed or natural object you can fix it by
Returning that exact object to that exact spot so example of a boundary stake so our ball is near an out of bound stake and we are not thinking or don’t maybe don’t even know the rule and we move that boundary stake well that that’s not a movable obstruction because
In the definition that’s a a fixed object something that we cannot move but we do it and somebody says hey you can’t do that well now we could put that exact stake back into that same hole into that same exact position so now we’ve eliminated that Improvement and now
We’re going to avoid that penalty but the key things are it has to be that stake back in the same spot in the same exact um position and location you can’t use another stake if you happen to break it you can’t use anything artificial to fix it let’s say for some reason the
Stake actually breaks in half if it’s you know dry rotted wooden steak you can’t tape it back together there’s no none of that uh it has to be uh putting that same object in the same condition back in the same spot and then if you were to move a
Movable object into place so that picture we have a player standing on that bench so in this case that player had a ball in a tree there’s a bench nearby actually moves it into position to in order to stand on it and make that next stroke well we know that now that
We cannot do that however if that player were to move the bench out of the way before making that stroke there would be no penalty and um the player would just have to determine what action to take whether take an unplayable or try to play it um
Without the bench there so another kind of nuance here so it says to move and movable object into place so if that bench just happened to be there the player did not move anything so the player then could climb on that bench and make that stroke because he did not
Physically move that bench into position so in that case uh just gets lucky in that situation so how you may fix so covered this um when trying to explain those things but just to to recap you have to have the original object back into the original position and eliminate any
Improvement that was that was made um and then if you happen to move an object into place you have to remove that object U again to eliminate any Improvement there man any questions on rule eight uh yes I have one here uh that says if instead of a divot um it’s your
Own pitch mark and you want to put the ball can you fix the Mark um so obviously if your ball is on the putting green um you’re allowed to mark it and fix fix your pitchmark um and then go back replace your ball and then um
Proceed with putting if you want to putt the ball but it’s the ball is off the putting green and it’s you know laying in The Fringe in the general area um then and the the divot is uh in that Fringe then you are not um you’re not
Allowed to fix your own pitchmark unless obviously the ball is embedded in that pitch mark then you would proceed under the embedded ball rule that K covered uh last week perfect thank you and um just to you so we covered 8.1 there there’s a couple there’s two others 8.2 and 8.3
8.2 I touched on a little bit uh which are you know deliberate actions to alter other physical conditions so anything that you couldn’t do in 8.1 with involving your cats so that specific stroke uh you cannot do in other areas where the ball might come to rest so the
Rules aren’t going to allow you to you know get a create an advantage by with an area that your ball might come to rest uh 8.3 once we know the the first two we can’t do anything in 8.1 or 8.2 to somebody else’s uh ball so we can’t
Alter or try to improve or um do anything to affect somebody else’s cats for their next stroke or where their ball might might come to rest so um if you want to read more on that once you get 8.1 down then 8.2 and three U make a
Whole lot more sense and they’re pretty straightforward the next we’re going to cover rule nine another one that whether you know it or not use for every stroke that you make uh in one way or the other um but before we we get into um rule
Nine we need to Define what uh actually means uh whether or not a ball has moved another one of these definitions in the rules of golf that do not match Webster’s version necessarily because we can have a ball that does physically move or oscillates or kind of wobbles in
The wind or something like that but per the rules of golf it has not moved um in their version of that definition so it actually has to leave its original spot and come to rest on another spot um they did add the the naked eye claws here so cannot use any you HD
High-speed uh videography to determine so if it can be seen by the naked eye and the other two are boxes are checked so it’s left its original spot and comes rest in another spot it has um moved um so it says it can be seen by the naked
Eye doesn’t mean that it has to be seen by the naked eye so the rules aren’t going to let you close your eyes and start moving things around and say hey I didn’t see it so it never happened um so you have to take that into account as
Well so uh the next part of that it applies whether the ball has gone up down horizontally so we have a ball perched on some grass so it’s our in the rough it’s our lucky day uh you do have to take some careful measures not to you
Know if you ground your Club lightly that’s permitted however if that causes your ball to sink downward in that rough now you have caused the ball to move going to get one penalty stroke and have to put that back I know can’t covered virtually known or virtual certainty and covering
Penalty areas this is another uh time where it’s used to determine what the standard is as to whether the ball moved or not so this could be something that we we saw or we thought we saw it can be something that we we didn’t see so you
Have a you know a blind t-shot or pting green and we see a dog run across the green you know we have to determine did that dog cause our ball to move again we have to use that 95% uh standard to determine Um this can be used by all use
All the information gathered by Spectators whoever’s around to determine that but you has have to have a a 95% standard as to whether or not the ball actually um moved or not so another time that the known or virtual certainty uh statement or uh definition is used
Here so now we we have determined that the ball has moved so the rules of golf are going to break this down into four possible causes so we know the ball has moved now we have to determine what actually caus it to move uh whether or
Not we’re going to put the ball back whether or not somebody’s going to get a penalty um so and all that is going to determine um be determined based on this slide and determining who or what actually moved that ball so Natural Forces wind water forces of gravity so
Just kind of nature um out there that just to um things happen and that can have happen to cause our ball to move uh the player which would include the player’s caddy or partner or the partner’s caddy so I’m not sure if we’ve talked about sides or not so we have a
Side in golf side includes a player if you have a caddy includes your caddy when you involve Partners so we’re playing a forall or forom our side also includes my partner and my partner’s caddy so that’s all included in our side uh the opponent or the opponent’s
Caddy so the opponent’s side and then uh an outside influence so could be basically another way of saying you know anything um it’s another player in stroke play an animal uh a spectator or just anything else so something else that are not included in those first
Three now what do we do for for all of these this is a a summary slide again there’s in all of these rules that we’re covered we’re trying to you know put these in layman’s terms and and keep things ascin as possible um but Natural Forces so the things mentioned before um
Wind gravity no penalty and and play the ball as it I with two exceptions so the exceptions aren’t here but I’ll go over those real quick because one of them is a is a new added uh exception in the most recent version of the rules um the
First one has been around though so you have a ball in the pting green and it’s just lying there has not been marked uh and wind blows and the ball rolls away so that’s a natural force has called caused our ball to move there’s no penalty obviously and we’re going to
Play the ball from its new spot however if we hit a ball on the putting green we go up and Mark that ball and pick it up now we have kind of moved into this exception if when we put the ball back if Wind Blows the ball and it rolls away
This exception says that we are no matter what now that we’ve marked and lifted that ball we are going to play from that spot so um if you have a ball that’s on a a hill and that that Hill is going away from the hole and it’s a
Windy day the best thing to do is run up there and Mark that ball because you know you’re going to play from that spot or one close to it um if it won’t come to rest but you want to go ahead and do that as quick as possible on the flip
Side if that Hill is sloping towards the hole you want to give it as much time as possible without delaying play because if the wind blows and the ball rolls towards the hole we haven’t done anything else to affect that ball and it rolls near the hole or even in the hole
Now it’s our lucky day and we’ve used that rule to our advantage and um you you accept that outcome so again you cannot delay play you can’t do anything to influence the ball it’s has to fall under this natural forces in number one here um but that’s a way that you can
Use the rule to your advantage U next we have uh the player and if we as a player uh move our ball uh we are going to accept one penalty stroke and replace the ball on its original spot U now there are five exceptions which we will highlight here
Because there’s five of them and these are kind of the most likely because it just involves the player so our exceptions here are that you are allowed to uh lift or move the ball now there’s tons of times when we’re allowed to do it such as on the putting green we are
Allowed to Mark and uh move our ball it’s you can do it at any time in your balls on the putting green uh accidental movement in trying to find or identify the ball we’ve we’ve covered that already already in in rule seven accidental movement on the putting green
Putting green is a a special place they have special permissions and allowances there so if it’s by accident and you move the ball that’s at rest then you’re simply just going to put it back and uh no penalty there uh you’re trying to apply our rule uh this is our fourth
Exception so we have a ball on the cart path and we’re trying to determine our nearest point of complete relief or we’re trying to measure our club length we are in the middle of applying that rule that’s another time you see while so there there is a start and an end
Point um the rules are going to say that if we’re trying to apply that rule and we’re in that while time period there’s no penalty for that um and then if the ball moves after coming to rest against player or uh against a player or equipment uh this does not happen very
Often but let’s just say you have a ball that you’ve made a stroke and have to come back and again it’s is all kind of accidental nothing deliberate it comes to rest against your foot or your club and then you TR in trying to Mo remove
Yourself for the club the ball moves the this is falls under our exception where we’re not going to get a penalty um and in any case if it’s by accident and we’re going to replace that ball and and move on uh next an outside influence uh I’m
Sorry next an opponent so if our opponent moves our ball uh at rest um they are going to receive one penalty stroke uh and must and either way we must replace the ball on the original spot there three exceptions here so that times that it wouldn’t uh these
Exceptions would not be included so uh we we have an opponent that accidentally kicks our ball in the Fairway or some other case like that they going to receive one penalty stroke and either they because they are the ones that moved it or ourselves as a player
Replace that ball um but there are are three exceptions so the first one um we’re again we’re in match play when you see the word opponent we know we’re in match play so there are special rules there um if you are conceding the stroke you obviously can pick up the ball and
Toss it back to uh the the player uh also if you are trying to Mark and lift the ball on the putting green and you just happen to mistake it as your own but it’s really your opponent’s that falls under our exception and we are not going to get penalized for that that
Kind of falls under the same umbrella as accidental movement on the pting green so if it’s by accident we just happen to mistake that ball for our ball uh the rules are not going to penalize you there and then thirdly um the same exceptions as for the player so there’s
A few uh exceptions that we covered in the for the player that would apply for the opponent as well specifically it mentions you know two three four or five so just to go back uh here so if it’s you know the opponent’s looking for our
Ball so doing us a a courtesy and moves our ball obviously not rules are not going to penalize for that excident movement of the putting green same thing as you know mistakenly Mark that ball um and then trying to apply the rule for themselves not going to get penalized
And then the the fifth one um as well so uh pretty self-explanatory in rule nine you just have to first determine whether or not the ball has moved you know apply that virtual certainty standard and then once we determine that it has we further break it down into what caused
It to move and then determine if there’s going to be a penalty whether to our opponent or to ourselves uh or if we’re going to play the ball as it lies with natural forces or if someone else or something else moved it then we’re going to put it back
Um so hopefully that helped kind of uh summarize that rule uh for everybody but we will take some questions now if there are any Amanda yeah I have one here um I think it it kind of relates back to what we talked about in rule
Eight um asking when during a play of a hole can play of a hole can a damage cup be repaired um so it also kind of goes outside a little bit uh that specifically falls under rule 13 but um a player is allowed to repair a damage
Cup um whether or not their ball is on the putting green um and they just you know they’re only allowed allowed to repair it um to get it back to as near as possible um as its original condition um but they’re not allowed to repair it um if it’s you know
Anything like natural wear to the hole um something um but if it’s you know from a ball embedded in the side of the cup uh the player the player has the right to uh fix that cup as close back to the original position as possible excellent any other
Questions nope that’s all we have right now all right well we’re going to jump into our our last rule which is Rule 11 which we typically in the office and in rules workshops U Even in our own education we you rule 11 can be somewhat
Confusing so we are going to try to uh summarize it as best as we can because there’s just so many different situations and outcomes and did this happen did that happen was the ball on the putting green was it off so we’re going to you know try to summarize that
As as best we can so three parts 11.1 and paraphrasing here but accidents happen and for the most part there’s not going to be any penalty um and we’re going to um replace the ball but depending on or play the ball is at Li sorry but depending on whether the balls
On or off the putting green there’s some times where we are going to have to cancel and replay uh 11.2 to uh deliberately putting things in the way so we’ve positioned someone or something in the way to purposely deflect our ball if it comes to it uh 11.2 does not
Happen very often at all uh 11.3 deliberately taking things out of the way U this is one that it is rare but it’s more likely in my opinion than 11.2 you might just have someone or yourself just not thinking and and just take something out of the way that is not
Permitted by the rules um so we’re going to try to Summarize each of these sections in the next few slides here so 11.1 a lot of words on here just uh kind of we’ll kind of uh tiptoe our way through it um so again accidents happen so we’re all only talking about
Accidental deflections of a ball that is in motion so uh the place where the ball must be played and whether or not there’s going to be a penalty uh so first if the ball ball is played from off the putting green so anywhere except the putting green there’s going to be no
Penalty and we’re going to play the ball as it lies as with many rules there are exceptions uh so if the if the rule if the ball does come to rest so we got a ball in motion it’s been deflected but then it actually comes to rest on any
Person or thing uh we’re going to drop the ball if it was uh off the putting green it came to rest on that object off the putting green and a release area this actually has happened in one of our tournaments there was a a golf course
Where a road was actually in play a uh a Jeep I believe actually drove down the road player hit struck a ball it hopped into the Jeep and course the Jeep carried on uh down the road so we’re obviously not going to have to track
Down that jeep and play the ball as it lies in that uh case we’re going to determine where the ball was at rest uh in that deep where first came to rest and then we’re going to drop the ball under that spot using our one Club
Length relief area in that same area of the course uh no closer to the hole if it happened to happen What when the ball was on the putting green so let’s say a dog picked it up we’ve got a picture there of a nice beagle there if a we
Have a ball in motion it’s been played from off the putting green onto the putting green it’s still rolling the dog runs up and snatches that ball we’re just going to Simply place the ball where the dog first picked that ball up so a couple Exceptions there so all of
Those that I just talked about were if the ball was played from off the putting green now if we have played a ball from on the putting green uh there’s going to be um no penalty with an exception um that I’ll cover here at the end and
Whether or not we play it as it lies or cancer and replay determines what actually caused that ball to be deflected so you’re going to play the ball as I if it strikes an animal defined as a loose impediment so worms ants Etc not going to be able to cancel
And replay that’s going to be play the ball as it lies loose impediment obviously uh played as it lies the next couple are might be surprising if it again this this is all accidental so nothing deliberate here it’s all an accident if the ball strikes the player
Or the club used to make the stroke that is no penalty and play the ball as it lies or in case if it’ss hold uh that’s could be your lucky day but again we’re not talking about anything deliberate this is totally by accident uh the flag stick or the flag stick attendant by
Accident or of course a ball marker which um of all of all of those you know the ball marker a loose impediment um an insect might be the most common but we’re going to just going to play the ball as it lies if it’s played from on
The pting green and is happens to be deflected by one of those now on the left side our cancelin replay situations are if it strikes another person a movable obstruction including another ball in motion or an animal that’s not defined as loose impediment so if we’re on the putting
Green and that same dog runs up and picks up our ball again now we’re going to cancel and Replay that stroke in that certain case uh the exception that I mentioned uh in the first part were is in stroke play if you have uh your your ball’s on the green you have another
Ball at rest on the putting green so both balls were on the green before the stroke uh the player would get the general penalty only in stroke play uh in that case if their ball hits that other ball that’s at rest so our next section 11.2 so deliberately putting things in the way
Um again this does not happen I I can’t from memory think of time that this actually happened in an event um that we’ve that we’ve run in my time with the vsga so we’ve switched from accidents to deliberately so we have intent there’s an intention to to affect the outcome uh
The player would get a general penalty um if they deliberately take an action to deflect any ball in motion doesn’t matter if their own ball an opponent or another player in stroke play uh so they actually have to either touch the ball it’s in motion or hits any equipment or
Other object um that the person put into position to deflect that ball um and in this case um there’s two things that have to happen the player must have intent so it’s it’s not an accident it’s very deliberate and the ball must actually hit the object uh in order for
That player to receive the the general penalty so there are few things that um are in 11.2 so you have to have intent you have to put something down or position something or someone uh with the intent that it will uh affect the outcome by deflection and the ball must
Actually hit the object in order for there to be a penalty situation in 11.2 now moving to um where the ball must be played so we’ve deliberately put something in the way um we’ve determined whether or not we’re going to be penalized based on the outcome so it’s
An intent and outcome based rule so if the ball was played from off the putting greenen uh the ball’s going to be played from where it most likely would have come to rest so this is something that we have to take into account all factors where the ball would have likely come to
Rest we’re going to determine our one Club length relief area in that correct area of the course and drop it uh in that area if the ball would have come to rest out of bounds so the ball’s screaming towards a boundary there’s no way to stop it there’s no way it would
Have come back you know someone or someone purposely to flex the ball uh we’re going to take stroke and distance in that in that case if the ball was played from on the pting green and someone purposely deflects the ball that we just covered you’re going to cancel and Replay that
Stroke the next 11.3 this is one that again it is rare but it’s more likely than 11.2 in my opinion um so we have a ball that’s in motion you I’m harping on this a lot but it’s now we’re we’re talking about deliberate actions um so the the player
Must not deliberately take any of the actions below so alter the physical conditions that covered in rule eight that we just covered a few moments ago um or if there’s a loose impediment or a movable obstruction you know it’s kind of that while that while moment while
The ball’s in motion so there is a beginning and an end so we know that in beginning before that stroke is is made before that ball is in motion we are allowed to move loose impediments or removable obstructions but we’re in that while period of time so while the ball
Is in motion after a stroke you can no longer move loose impediments or a movable obstruction um and in this case in 11.3 u the player or the opponent the other player in stroke play must only have intent so once you remove that divot once you remove the loose
Impediment remove the uh the boundary or the uh penalty area stake something that you think would have uh impacted that ball while it’s in motion right away that penalty is going to be applied there’s no way to to get out of it because it’s only an intent based rule
Versus 11.2 you have to have the intent so the deliberate putting something in uh either you know in front of the hole behind the hole to deflect the ball and the ball has to actually hit it so two parts there but 11.3 when you’re taking
Things out of the way once the ball is in motion that is only an intent baced rule so just want to really harp on that because it uh least for myself it’s uh confusing to uh kind know wrap your head around the first time there are a few exceptions as
Always to where the player would not receive a penalty so this rule so we have again we have a ball that’s in motion already um removing a remove flag stick so the ball’s on the putting green and we put the flag sck behind the hole and maybe uh that that person did not
Put the flag far enough away from the hole because the player hit a bad putt it’s kind of screaming towards the hole everyone sees that uh it might hit the flag stick person runs over picks up the flag stick out of the way that is part of our exception there’s no penalty
There ball at rest on the pting green there’ be no penalty to anyone there as long as they follow the correct procedure and marking that ball and lifting it uh to remove it so it doesn’t strike it um or the equipment belonging to any player so same as the flag stick
We put our clubs down our towel whatever the case may be somewhat near the hole and just wasn’t quite far enough away if we think the ball is tracking towards hitting that those objects then um they are able to be removed out of the way without penalty made any questions there on rule
11 yeah I’ve got one uh one question here it’s a situational one that they had a kid once pick up the ball on the green um and put it in the hole they had no idea where it was originally on the green how should they have played that um
So if they know it has been moved uh by an outside influence and they’re not sure where the original spot is uh the player in that case must use their reasonable judgment to determine where the ball had come to rest before it was moved um so in that case you you
Know you just you the player would have to take their best reasonable guess where it may have landed on the green um and place it there and uh continue on from there there are no penalty Strokes to the player in that situation all right anything else before
We we wrap up Amanda any other questions um I got one more here that says um can I remove a yellow Stak which I think my ball May strike um and penal penalty Stakes are movable obstructions so that uh yellow Stak would be able uh you’d be able to pick
It up place it down and then replace it after you make your stroke and those are the only two questions we have Josh great well again uh to go go back to the intro uh we hope that you all enjoyed today’s session as well as the
Other two sessions you know we this is our second year of doing this virtual series of of workshops and you know we would like any feedback uh or if you have any questions you can certainly submit those um via email to us so please we’re we’re open all years to
Receive that and the easiest way to do it to in order for it to reach us is to go to our website which actually just launched a new website yesterday if you go to the about us tab at the top and then contact us there’s a rules section
You can email us another question whether you have it now or throughout the season any feedback uh but again we we welcome that and also if you would like to attend a future session whether it be this year or next for this year’s sessions that are coming up we will be
Promoting those um hopefully this week um it be a full day we’ll we’ll cover more rules and we’ll cover uh some of the same rules that we did during these virtual sessions a little more in depth and it’ll be in person so uh we hope to
See you there um if we don’t see you there we hope to see you at an event one way or the other I know we have a few volunteers look forward to seeing you all soon we have a few players on there look forward to seeing you all in our
Events uh really soon but I appreciate all the support um for all these sessions and hope you all have a a good uh rest of your week and look forward to the up golf season so thank you so much if you do have a question now we’re
Going to hang out for just a minute or two and we can answer those but we will uh we will see you all later thank you
