Good evening and welcome to the wga’s 15th installment of the swing series tonight Wendy Dominic former wga board member and our rules expert will cover the rules of golf and answer your pre-submitted questions in addition I will be monitoring the chat feature so you can submit questions live during
Tonight’s session but before we get started I’d like to introduce you to our new tournament manager Aaron shower Aaron started her career golfing by volunteering at the first te from there she went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Business and Professional golf management from Sunni Del high after
Graduating she worked as the Director of girls golf at Beth Page golf course and as the assistant pro at mon talk Downs Aaron is also a Class B Professional of the LPGA and is working to finish level three this may to be a Class A LPGA professional hi ladies looking forward
To meeting all you and having a good season this year thanks Aon so Wendy Dominic is a certified rules expert attending seven usgaa PGA rules workshops where she achieved the highest level at each session she started volunteering as an official in 2010 after retiring from her career as a
Kindergarten teacher her knowledge has allowed her the opportunity to officiate at usgaa MGA wga and colle tournaments Wendy is an avid golfer playing over 100 days each Summer she has traveled to Scotland 14 times and Ireland three times in 2017 Wendy was the wga’s B player of the year she currently serves
On the tournament committee for the wga let’s give a warm welcome to Wendy Dominic thank you Sarah good evening everyone uh I don’t know if some of you are new at this or returnees from previous sessions but either way uh I hope you get something out of this and I
Hope I have something to offer uh 2023 or 2024 is not a rules revision year so the good news is you don’t have to learn a whole bunch of new stuff so uh most of this evening we can review things that you might already know or need a little tweaking on uh
Certainly uh feel free to use the chat feature to type in any questions uh Sarah will be monitoring that and she’ll uh interrupt if there’s a question that is pertinent to what I’m talking about at the moment otherwise we’ll have time at the end uh for your questions they
Can be about anything at all uh or if suddenly you realize that there’s a general topic you want to know something about by all means type it in that’s that’s fun fun for me to puts me on the spot too and and that’s what really happens out on the
Golf course you’re on the spot so uh that’ll be Ju Just Fine uh just so you’ll know uh what I plan to cover this evening you can decide if you want to stay or say well that sounds like a boore I’m GNA leave uh I’m going to go over some of
The rules re resources that are available on our wga website which are uh handy for you for tournaments and particularly there’s some good stuff there about uh general information about team matches um I’m going to uh the real Focus tonight is going to be what I’m
Going to call uh what to do when you don’t know what to do and the rules and the procedures for what to do when you don’t know what to do uh are very different from stroke in stroke play and in match play so we’ll do uh some of a
Lot of both and I’m going to guess that during my presentation on that you’re going to have some questions so fire away um if there’s time uh I’m going to uh pick up a little bit where we left off last session where I did a lot of work on
Uh uh relief from finding nearest point of relief we had cart paths we had rocks and stones and places where you didn’t want to drop but you maybe had to uh we’re going to pick up and just quickly review that and go on to what happens
When you have more than one situation at once and figure out well what are you going to do about that we’ll do that if there’s time uh and then again uh random questions at the end would be would be great so I’m going to start out with some get to the wga
Website and and I’m showing this here so that you’ll be able to find this information yourself if you go under tournaments and overview I’m going to go down to wga hard card this is a two-page document you’re all familiar those of you who have played in in tournaments with our
Notice to players which you get which tells you where breakfast is and uh whether there’s a driving range and it also covers the local rules uh all organizations that run multiple tournaments throughout a season have a hard card and so we’ve just rewed and modernized or updated uh the wmga based
Hard card and basically what it is it’s a list of all of the local rules that apply to all tournaments at all courses many of them aren’t necessary at some courses so here we have uh decorative flower beds and turf nurseries maybe a particular course doesn’t have any decorative decorative
Uh flower beds and turf nurseries but this covers it so anywhere you are any course that you’re playing a wmga event say wait a minute I can’t play from there that’s ground under repair it’s a no play zone um you know then you have of course your Basics with ground
Under repair and how it’s marked uh out of bounds um this has been added new this year is the sprinkler heads near greens and I’m going to go over that specifically tonight um so that’s a situation where you definitely might not see that on the local rules of the club
Uh a a club might not use that rule uh they might not have any sprinkler heads near the Green in the closely moan areas but if you come across it at any wga event it will be in place and you can use that rule uh the same with artion holes that
Probably won’t be mentioned on the notice to players if the course hasn’t been arated in months but if you come across an irration hole lucky you you get relief uh so that’s what the hard card is I would recommend printing this out and sticking it in your bag for the whole
Summer uh if you’re playing team matches this also applies to team matches so I would suggest that you uh print it out and have it for team matches because team matches we don’t usually get a notice to players you you’re you get often local rules are posted on the bulletin board when you
Arrive so this is a good thing to have also I believe we’ll have Aaron do a heads up you know uh that if you are playing in a wmga event when you get your notice to players there probably will be a link to this on the notice to players and so if
You don’t need it now to print it out uh when you get your notice to players you know how we get the list of uh tea times you get your uh hydration awareness you get a few other things that you click on to link and you’ll get this um hard
Card so I definitely I’m not reading this to you now going to go back now and under team matches we have some match play rules and reminders and again don’t worry I’m not going to read it to you I’m just going to show you what’s here and then the
Important things I will cover tonight this is not about the rules of golf but it’s just some info particularly if you’re new to team matches so you know there’s information about lunch check the weather bring your rain suit uh lots of good stuff there for for new uh new
Members or new to team matches uh this is also about team matches uh again some etiquette we are guests at the club you know when you’re sitting at lunch keep in mind you might be sitting with members uh with the club you know let’s not criticize the eighth hole Pond
Uh or the food uh so some good hints there that you should read over okay now we have some match play information and I’ll go over a little bit of this uh right now uh but it’s worth uh but I think it’s worth reading uh and it points out the difference
Between uh match play and some of the differences in between match play and stroke play uh and that’s in stroke play you are obligated to deal with any rule infraction that you do yourself of course that’s match play as well uh but you’re you’re responsible for the whole field on the
Course so anybody you’re with you see something happen you really need to bring it up uh but in match play you can Overlook it and whether you choose to do that is entirely up to you there’s some rules that are so uh no Advantage gained that some people just prefer to overlook
Minor things that they see uh an example uh a lot of ladies a lot of men a lot of players uh mark their ball on the green and then before they putt they rotate it to get it lined up the way they like and the ball has to remain marked while you
Do that but I’m sure we’ve all seen players who pick up their marker and then give it one more more rotation and you’re not allowed to do that so that would be an example of something that you you know they’re not g getting an advantage you know they
Probably don’t know the rule so it’s entirely up to you whether you want to bring that up bring up that penalty or Overlook it uh I do want to point out one thing that is slightly changed from the way it’s written here um it says if you are concerned your
Opponent May repeat the offense you may acknowledge the error but only after teeing off on the next hole to acknowledge the error any earlier would constitute an agreement to wave the rules and you’re not allowed to do that uh however there’s a slight change there in that the definition of
Agreement has changed some somewhat so if I were to see my opponent fiddle with the ball a little little bit um and that’s something I imagine that they’re going to do on every hole you know you either do that or you don’t and it wasn’t marked I have uh really
Several choices one just let it go and not worry about it I can wait until we finish the hole and teed off on the next hole and then sayou know what just so you’ll know the rule you can’t do that that’s one thing to do uh but what’s changed
Now is that I can bring it up and just say to her I notice that you line up your line on the ball want you to know there’s a penalty if it the ball isn’t marked but I’m not going to apply that penalty right now
But don’t do it anymore or I will you know but that way you’re telling the opponent the rule uh you used to not be able to mention it at all you can tell them it’s not an agreement if you just state that you are not applying the penalty if you have a conversation
Though so you you mention it and you say hey I saw that you were fiddling with your ball and it wasn’t marked uh you know that’s a penalty and your opponent says what are you going to call that on me and you have this conversation and
You decide oh okay not this time now you’ve made an agreement you can’t do that so basically your choices are ignore it completely make it very clear you’re not uh applying the penalty uh make it very clear you are applying the penalty or wait until you uh tee off on the the
Next hole which I’ll get to later when we talk about uh dealing with some rule situations in match play that there is that time limit of uh teeing off on the next hole I I know and maybe others have had this happen uh you’ll see something that you
Choose to ignore and that’s one of the things that I get I would tend to ignore I don’t I don’t want to win a hole because somebody lined up their uh line on their ball uh but it’s also it’s against the rules to uh do it without
Marking it so if you choose to call that infraction go for it it’s it’s a personal choice uh but I’ve often mean to tell the player in as a a favor so that she’ll be educated but because in the past you weren’t able to bring it up I would
Forget and I’d be driving home from the event oh I meant to tell her she couldn’t do that so I think this helps with that a little bit but those are your choices for that um the others are you know uh order of play is important
In match play it’s not so important in stroke play uh if you play out of order your opponent can ask you to replay there’s no penalty uh I think the main area we sometimes see this is with short putts and your opponent doesn’t concede the
Putt and players will just go in and go up and uh tap it in and if it’s not conceited you really have to wait and Mark it we can concede the whole Chang you’re having a bad day you say you’re match let’s go home uh so you can see concede
A pot a hole or the entire match and rules issues that’s the big event for this evening I’m going to cover in detail in stroke play doesn’t really matter uh about the scoring until you get it right when you turn in your scorecard at the end uh it’s always a
Good idea to tell your marker what your score was on each hole and get it all right as you go along but uh I’ve seen it all and uh the main thing is at the very end but in match play it’s really important that you know what’s going on
You need to know how many strokes your opponent has taken uh you can ask at any point say by the way what do you lie there and they have to give you the right information if you if they give you the wrong information just and it
Will be a mistake you know they say you know I lie I lie uh three and say okay and the way you play the rest of the hole is going to be based on thinking that your opponent lies three and so if it turns out that they don’t
Correct that mistake before you play another stroke uh it’s loss of ho uh you also have to tell your opponent as soon as you as soon as practicable yep I got the word right practicable uh of a penalty uh the exception is if it’s very obvious what
She’s doing you saw the ball go in the penalty area it’s splashed you see her fish it out you see her drop you know what she’s doing uh but if there’s another uh penalty that you uh she might not know that you’ve taken such as uh taking an unplayable uh
You need to tell her as soon as possible if you’re on one side of the Fairway or you’re in the woods taking an unplayable and she’s across the way you wait until you’re closer together and you say by the way I took an unplayable over there
But you do have to uh keep your opponent informed and this practice is the same in both match play and stroke play you can practice uh chipping near the pole you just played as long as you’re not slowing anything down uh this is just a bit more about
The differences in match play and stroke play and in the rule book many of the rules you will see penalty and it’ll say General penalty it won’t specify that it’s two strokes in stroke play and loss of Hole In match play so wherever you see General penalty uh and the penalties are usually
In in red uh at the bottom of the rule in the book uh that’s what that means uh as I said I’m not going to really some of this is duplicated from the uh previous page stroke play playing out the hole with two balls I’m going to spend quite
A bit of time on on that so that’s all there for you this is new this was my last Harrah from being a team match chair this is sort of a compilation of everything that went that went wrong uh I would get phone calls on team match days and some
Of these just happen over and over I thought oh let me just type this up and have it available uh you uh need to wait for for your opponent for five minutes uh she gets five minutes to get there if she’s not there within five
Minutes uh even if she shows up later uh she has uh forfeited the match and the other players on the team move up and play in different positions um but you do need to wait the five minutes because if she gets there within five minutes here still going to play
Against her uh but you’re going to start on the second hole she loses the first hole um it’s a good idea to figure out each hole as you go along make sure you know who won the hole if you tied it and settle uh any disputes you might have
Over uh the score for the Hole uh again you we need a ruling this is going to fall under uh what to do when you don’t know what to do uh but this is important you have to keep going you don’t stop in the middle of the six
Fairway holding up the all the teams that are playing that day uh so when I talk about getting a ruling you’re going to be getting a ruling after the match you just have to agree on some facts and my favorite happens every year players play the wrong hole because in
Team matches uh we don’t have anybody out there to guide us around often there’s no caddies you’ve never played the courses the course before and you end up playing the wrong hole there’s no penalty go to the right hole when you come to a around round to that hole again assuming you finished
The hole the first time you just skip it if you were to Play It Again the score the second time counts but again no penalty at all just find out where you belong uh I think the first time that happened to me was at Fairfield all of a sudden my opponent
And I were on the green and we we looked around I was like there’s the clubhouse there’s the Pro Shop we’re not supposed to be on the 18th green yet and we realized we had made a mistake okay this happened last year we had rain snow and
Hail and I was getting uh I was actually playing that day I didn’t get any hail but it was raining pretty hard and I believe uh pascalina texted me and I I saw the text at the turn and they wanted to know can they quit because there was
Hail and it was cold and uh yes in uh Team matches if you if one person wants to quit and the other one says no I’m going to keep going or I want to keep going the one who wants to quit loses those unearned point you know points uh or you can both
Agree to that you want to quit but you can’t split the points uh this is all in the TSB by the way so Sarah and I are just having a terrible time neither of us want to be there we’ve Sarah’s already won the front nine she gets those points the
Back nine is still up in the air the uh overall for the 18 is still over in the up in the air we don’t get those points we don’t split them but yes you may go home no stay for lunch uh and then a few other things
That uh keep coming up uh Spectators there are no spectators at team matches uh all our other events we’re happy to have spectators but we don’t have any staff to deal with the insurance issues and so forth uh to have spectators uh we either take carts or
Caddies or both but you can’t carry your own bag or use a pull cart and you’ll get all this uh information from your uh The Host Club will provide it to your captain and yes in match play you do have to post all your scores so that is that uh
Info Wendy I’m gonna jump in here with a question oh okay good so for team matches does the WJ hard card override the local rules for instance our course does not have the sprinkler head rule as a local rule yes wga overrides it wga is running the event and they can make
Their own local rules um our local rules or I’ll call it ours yeah I am on the committee I guess we can call it ours the wga rules uh do override uh any other local rules so if your Club does not have the sprinkler head rule it
Is in effect and that’s one of the reasons we have one of the local rules for uh wga is that all flower beds and plantings are no play zones because we don’t want to mess up the the club the club might let you pack away at the daffodils uh
But we’re going to be respectful of that and uh that’s why that’s on our hard card okay let’s see now I can do that to disappeared and now we’re going to go on to the sprinkler heads near the green which is the example ah this is the rule oops okay
And it’s hard to find because the the local rules are not in your rule book they’re in the official guide which you may have if you have the app or you can find on the the website uh but these are this is how it works uh the sprinkler heads are in
Obstructions but if it’s in your way you don’t actually have uh stance or your ball isn’t on it uh with certain restrictions you may get line of play relief so if the obstruction is on the line of play in the general area cut to Fairway height or less so this usually is you
Know it’s either in the Fairway or on the apron of the green uh the sprinkler head has to be within two Club lengths of the putting green and within two Club lengths of the ball and you find your nearest point of relief and drop in the relief area just
As we do for all relief situations and I’ll show you some pictures go let’s see do red okay here we go so here are we happen to have two sprinkler heads here and there’s the flag right there if your ball was right here and you’re right-handed you would
Not be standing on a sprinkler head your ball’s not on the sprinkler head the sprinkler head doesn’t interfere with your stroke but most most likely you would like to putt and that’s the reason for this uh this Rule and uh you can see that this I
Think you can see this is clearly quite close to the put edge of the putting green within two Club lengths I believe this one as well is within two Club lengths and then your ball would have to be within two Club lengths of the sprinkler head so if you were away down here
That wouldn’t qualify so we call it the 2 plus two rule that’s really all you need to remember that if you’re within two Club lengths of the sprinkler head and the sprinkler head is within two Club lengths of the putting green you get relief so in this case we can ignore
This one for a minute it’s unusual actually that they’re two so close together uh assuming your line of putt is such that you’re going to go Fairly straight this would be your nearest point of relief right about there and you would drop it within your relief
Area this came up at a wga event last summer in the group I was with one of my players or co-players uh had this situation we checked the local rules and it wasn’t um it wasn’t listed so we said let’s uh let’s make it one of our local
Rules okay now the main event what to do when you don’t know what to do so let me just show you where this is on the whether you use the book the app the the web website it’s rule 20 just want you to know the name of it
Because sometimes you’re out on the course and you say I know I know what to do but I can’t remember let me find it so it’s rule 20 resolving rules issues during a round and then of course rulings by referee and committee you really don’t have to worry about you’re
Worrying about during a round when you have to deal with it yourself here is the text of the rule and it’s long I promise I won’t read it to you uh but I’ll point out some of the things that I am going to cover with some
Diagrams as you can see it’s it’s quite long so don’t don’t delay play you know you’re not going to uh most of our wga events uh we have a couple of staff people who have radios um but you know you could be you know how are you going to find
Somebody to give you a ruling um we just don’t have very many people sometimes you’re lucky and there’s somebody right there who is roving around and can help you out but uh so the two different methods of resolving rules issues one for match play and one for stroke play uh
Expect you to take care of it yourself and not to delay play so as I said I’m really not going to read it all but in match play one thing that is interesting is that you can do your best to figure out what you think should be done and
There’s no problem even if you get it wrong as long as you’re trying to do what you think you should be doing for example you’re not sure whether you get one Club length or two Club lengths relieved from something now if you and your opponent really don’t know and you’re
Not having any animosity over it and you know you’re not having a situation where one says oh no you only get one Club l and you the other one says no I think I get two and that can be dealt with as well but you might just say yeah I think it’s
Two go for it you’re you you’ve agreed you’re not breaking the rules in match play you are just doing the best you can you find out later by the way you know I was on this cart path and I wasn’t sure you know what’s the rule doesn’t matter
If you got it wrong you were doing the best that you could I’m going to use a specific uh photograph to show how to uh deal with a situation when you’re not in agreement uh now this working out in match play what you think you should do
Does not apply to stroke play in stroke play you have to get it right so you can have four people playing together and you say oh yeah sure I know you can get two Club lengths from there if you’re wrong you’re in trouble because you’re going to be penalized for
Playing from a wrong place or might be depending on where you actually dropped but uh because in the difference is in match play it’s just you and your opponent uh we expect you to play golf you can’t just make up everything you want to do um but uh you’re not hurting anybody
Else at all if you get it wrong whereas in stroke play uh you do need to get it right but we have a way of dealing with that as well um now well I’ll cover it in a second uh I’m going back and forth a lot I
Apologize for this but I really want to compare the match play in The Stroke play so it’s sort of like oh I have to bring this up and uh go back and forth with that um okay so I’ll get to it in a minute you’re going to ask for a ruling in
Match play you’re going to find out later and then in stroke play you’re going to be able to play uh two balls and so we just get out of this and we’ll move on to or picture for two balls so here we have I tried to come up with the
Simplest situation I could where there could be uncertainty uh there can be uncertainty uh among oppon between opponents there could be uncertainty in stroke play as well so here we have a ball on a grate in the rough I think we all know that you’re entitled to relief without penalty for an
Abnormal ground condition uh find the nearest point of relief which is right about there we’re going this way by the way so this would be the nearest point of relief and then this is your one Club length relief area so I bet you’re all thinking what’s
The problem or maybe you are aware of what the problem could potentially be there can be uncertainty on whether or not you can drop in the Fairway so that’s the uncertainty in this situation where I’m going to cover both match play and stroke play uh what you would do about
This but I think I’ll just tell you the answer in case you don’t know so the ball is in the general area are you need to drop it in the general area the rough is general area the Fairway is general area so by all means you may drop in the
Fairway common misconception that many people think no you have to stay in what some are calling the same condition uh there’s no such thing it’s it’s a general area so uh yeah you can you can drop in the Fairway now but what if you don’t know
So we going to cover stroke play first so stroke play you think you can but somebody in your group says no I don’t think so or you’re not sure and so you can play two balls you can only do this in stroke play uh oh so I want to keep this picture
Up I’m not doing too bad with the technical difficulties I’m going to come back to that in a minute oh just to uh okay let me just go over this for a minute just so you’ll uh appreciate uh that it is often uh questioned whether or not
You can drop from the Fairway to the rough uh there is a clarification that explains that sometimes you get a worse your worse off you may even have to drop uh in the rough when your ball is in the Fairway in certain situations for example if you’re in casual casual what temporary
Water in the Fairway it’s possible that your nearest point of complete relief could be in the rough and then the opposite is also true so this clarifies uh that it’s just a matter of general area doesn’t matter if it’s better or worse Wendy we have a question on that
So I think that answers it you can improve your lie with the drought from the great improve your lot well yeah you’re getting a good deal is what the person is asking I think yes yes you can definitely get into the uh in that situation you were able to drop in the
Fairway but here you see it’s it specifically mentions the general area so you just have to remember it’s the general area not Fairway or rough so I’m going to go back to the picture uh ohoh What happened to my picture oh no where’s the great what did I do
Ah okay so stroke play you’re not sure what to do stroke play you want to get it right because if you aren’t allowed to drop in the Fairway and you do you would get a two-stroke penalty for dropping in the wrong place but we already know it’s fine but we’re going
To pretend that we don’t know so here’s what you can do in stroke play before playing a stroke at the drop ball or maybe you haven’t dropped yet but before playing a stroke you announce that you’re going to play the play out the hole with two balls
You have to announce that to your marker or somebody in your group and you should slash must in order to make it all work out the way you want uh announce which ball you want to count now while it seems obvious in this situation I mean who would why are you
Playing two balls because you want to drop in the Fairway but even so you have to say I want the one in the Fairway to count if you don’t make that announcement uh when you uh bring this up at scoring it’s going to be whichever
Ball you played first is going to be the one to count so you say okay I’m going to play two balls I’m going to drop one in the rough I’m going to drop one in the Fairway I want the one in the Fairway to count and you play out the ball the hole
With two balls questions on so the first one is don’t you have to find the nearest point of relief yes the nearest point of relief is right here so that comes first you know it’s going to be very close to where that ball is on the grate
It’s going to be there and so you found the nearest point of relief and then your one Club length area is like like this but you once you’ve uh established that within your one Club length area that there is some Fairway there that’s what is bringing up this question of am
I allowed to drop there or not so you say I’m going to play two balls I want the ball that I drop in the Fairway to count you can play them in either order if you say that you want the one in the Fairway to count that’s the one
That will count if the rules allow that will all be sorted out when you get to the scoring table you must announce or tell at scoring that you played two balls uh this rule is really quite user friendly in many ways uh basically you have to report it at scoring if you
Don’t you’re going to be disqualified um you should strong strong should be sure to play out the hole with both balls just give you an example of what you possibly would do and don’t do it um so you say I’m going to play two balls you drop one in the rough it’s a
Terrible lie you drop one or you say okay I’m gonna play this one first I don’t want this one to count and you hit a wonderful shot just no problem at all and you say well I know I can drop in the rough so why bother to play the
One the other ball in the Fairway don’t do it because when you find out later that you could have dropped in the Fairway you said before you played this ball that you wanted the one from the Fairway to count you’re allowed to drop from there that would have been the ball that was
Going to count and you didn’t play it so you didn’t hold out on that hole and you would be disqualified pretty serious stuff but that’s why I’m saying don’t let it happen that’s why we’re playing two balls so play them both uh got some more questions here on this
Great you drop by the Fairway and it you know it’s closer to the pin is that allowed no it can’t be you it has to be within your relief area so if this is your nearest point of relief and you dropped here that won’t be nearer to the hole that’s why we
Measured out this relas Rel area it has to remain it has to land in the relief area when you drop and it has to stay in the relief area so the relief area in the for the purpose of this we we assume we’re going in that direction and that’s why
Uh that’s why you you’re limited to back here in this area anything else would be closer to the hole so no you cannot drop closer to the hole if the ball were to if you were to drop it accidentally and it’s not in the relief area you would have to
Redrop if you dropped it in the relief area and it rolled out of the relief area you’d have to redrop and one final question here what if there’s an argument in match play okay oh I’m gonna do match play in a minute yeah okay this is the easy stuff
To stroke play playing two balls uh so in uh play you you play the two balls you can play them as I said in either order uh something that okay let’s just say this this could happen you drop it in the rough you play it from the rough and hit a poor
Shot somebody in your group says you know you could have dropped it in the Fairway well it’s too late to play two balls you’ve already played one ball however and this is where it gets a little user friendly you say oh yeah you’re right well I’m going to play two
Balls I’m going to play one from the Fairway now uh no penalty at all for playing that second ball but it’s no way it’s going to count so the uh decision to play a second ball has to come up before you make a shot with with the ball
Now and and then of course you know the you’re just going to have to hope that you uh you score better with the one that’s going to count you never know how that’s going to go but that’s up to the committee to uh figure that out uh in some cases uh a situation
Where you might choose to play two balls or situations where you think an area uh should have been marked as ground under repair and it wasn’t uh and you think it was overlooked and that the committee would declare it as ground under repair might be a tire rut might
Just be a really bit poor area that was overlooked um that’s another situation where you could play play two balls um but again you uh you don’t know how that’s going to come out and you could do worse with the ball that you played from ground
Under uh that you you know you never know how it’s going to go but it gets you off the hook from playing from a wrong place and that’s why you’re going to uh use this Rule now now we’re going to talk about match play so again I wanted to keep it simple
Because if I had gotten into some very complicated rule we’d be discussing the rule uh rather than the procedure for what to do in match play so we come upon this in in a match I think that I can drop in the Fairway my opponent tells me no I can’t so we don’t
Agree so if I’m the one that wants to take relief in the Fairway and my opponent tells me and this is this could be by the way before it happens or things can be brought up in match play uh about asking for a ruling after it happens
It’s a lot easier if it’s before it happens because you can kind of keep it friendly uh but my opponent makes it clear no no no you have to drop in the rough I can either go along with what she says Play From the Rough no
Problem or I can stick to my guns and say no I’m really quite sure I can drop in the Fairway I’m going to drop in the Fairway and play from here my opponent can then say or should really cuz she’s sure that I’m doing the wrong thing and getting an advantage uh
So well I disagree with that and I would like to ask for a ruling when we finish the match so we agree on the situation the situation is can I drop in the Fairway or not she has to make that request to get a ruling before we tee off on the next
Hole there is a time limit uh on that uh off in this situation she lets me know right away I may even say to her you know what I’m really quite sure I’m right on this but you can ask for a ruling when we finish and what happens then
Is we play out the hole and we really don’t know the outcome until we get a ruling later questions I’m sure there are questions oh here there’s one to clarify here do you have to declare which ball will count before making any drop uh excuse me yes you have
To no you could have dropped excuse me you can uh so we’re now back to stroke play yeah so you have a situation where it has to be before you’ve played a stroke so you could have dropped so let’s say you took a drop uh let’s just
Reverse it a little bit most of the time you’re trying to uh get a drop in a good place you you’re in a spot you’re in a tire rut and you want to get a drop uh this could be the opposite um you assumed you could get a drop from
Something and then it’s pointed out and you drop and then you’ve before you’ve played the stroke you think oh wait a minute maybe I’m not allowed relief from here so it’s okay that you already dropped but you you don’t want to just you know maybe where you dropped is
Fine so you don’t want to pick up that ball but you have doubts so you drop another in the other spot and you announce which one before you uh play either ball so the key to it being too late is playing a stroke uh to get back a little bit to
The match play situation as I said it’s a lot easier if a situation comes up like this where you’re uh discussing it in a friendly manner uh before it happens you know and it just can be hey you know I don’t think you can drop there and uh you just
Say do what you want you know but we’ll get a ruling later uh this would be a case of playing from a wrong place if you weren’t allowed to drop in the Fairway and playing from a wrong place and match play is loss of hole so it’s a
Matter really of your own confidence in uh the rule whether you want to go ahead uh and agree with your opponent or uh do what you think you’re entitled to do um it’s a little more difficult when it’s already happened so you know then you have a situation you say Hey you
Know you just hit from the Fairway you can’t do that uh that’s the wrong place and you lose the hole and the opponent would say no I think I’m allowed to and then you know you just agree you say we’ll get a ruling on this this
Later um couple of things on getting uh the ruling is the rules say refer to getting a ruling from the committee so in uh all our wmg event events other than uh the team matches we have a committee on site we have we’ll have Aaron uh usually have a rules uh person
There uh we have other staff we have access to calling Sarah you know and whatever uh I get phone calls uh during team matches about about rules um we are that would be the committee um you can’t shop around for a ruling so when you you
Know you have to agree that you know technically it’s the committee but if you were to ask somebody else before uh going to the committee you see somebody out on the 17th hole who you happen to know and you say oh you know she’ll she’ll do we’ll ask her and you
Get a ruling and you say okay thank you that’s your ruling you have agreed on you’ve worked that out yourself you could ask the uh the locker room attendant you know and uh if that’s what you did that’s what you did uh many ladies will go to
The pro at the club that’s up to you uh he’s not he or she is not on our committee but if that’s what you that’s who you want to go to that’s fine uh you can go to your uh series Captain who isn’t necessarily A rules expert but
Might say hey why don’t we call the office or you know so that’s how that works out got a few more questions here to clarify not playing two balls in match play no you cannot play two balls in match play uh and if you think about
It you’d have no idea what you were up against you know the whole idea of match play is oh I she’s she’s on the green and three and I’m on in four oh I better make this putt but on the other hand oh but she’s on the Green in three with
That hole that ball and two with this ball oh but I don’t know which one’s going to count it’s just a mess um and if however if okay now anybody who’s here this evening now knows you can’t do it in match play so that’s going to be
Fine but if two opponents didn’t know that you couldn’t do it and they said yeah yeah play play too um it would the committee is not going to do much ruling on it because you couldn’t do it they’re just going to tell you the first ball
Counts it just whatever it is the first ball counts and there would be uh no penalty uh now on the other hand if my opponent uh if I said I’m going to play two balls and my opponent who was here this evening listening very careful to all of
This and knows that she can’t will say no you’re not allowed to that’s only stroke play uh and objects and said no you can’t play two balls you’re gonna have to decide what you want to do here uh and I play two balls anyway I lose the
Hole what happens sorry Wendy go ahead more questions come in what happens if one person asks a ruling from the pro and the opponent doesn’t agree with the ruling the pro gives okay you had to you will have had to have agreed that it’s the pro you’re going to you know that’s
Important you can’t as I said you can’t shop for a ruling so the pro is not on our committee and as he said there’s nothing wrong with both of you saying we’ll ask the prow you know he may be the best person on site to to give a ruling so I’m not
Going to say don’t do it but you can’t have one run into the pro shop and say hey I got a ruling the other one says hey we never said we were asking the pro so that’s something you should work out you know uh so when you say we’ll get a
Ruling at the end of the match uh talk it over on who you’re going to go to another one how long can you wait in match play before continuing to the next hole I mean time limit so you don’t interfere with time of play repeat that one so how long can you
Wait in match play before continuing to the next hole and then she continues on I mean time limit so you don’t interfere with the time of play oh okay you’re not gonna thank you that I think if I understand the question uh that’s an important Point um the purpose of getting a
Ruling uh later is to not stop everything there is no referee there’s not likely anybody in anywhere nearby so you’re not going to know the outcome of that hole or it’s very possible you won’t know the outcome of that hole and you will continue on you don’t you don’t try
To get a ruling after the hole You you wait till you finish the match good that’s all we have for now with the questions okay um how are we doing I have steady our numbers we’re holding steady with our numb so okay so they’re not running they’re not running
Out not yet when they start to run out we’ll stop um so I’m gonna pick up a little bit where I left off last time when we were talking about um relief from we talked about a cart path so I’m going to start with the simple cart path picture that I think I
Worked with last year um so if any of you uh were not with us I can’t imagine why but if you weren’t with us last session a year ago uh I did a lot with finding nearest point of relief and this is we’re going to call this a cart
Path I tried to make it gray but I’m you know I’m doing okay with my Graphics here but uh I couldn’t quite make that cart path gray without hiding the ball so just as a quick review you want relief from the cart path it has to be complete relief both
For your stance and for the ball so if you came this way your feet would probably be about here I’m imagining a club you know to hit the shot and so you would look at this distance and say okay that’s how far it would be if we went to the
Left if you went in this direction your feet would have to go there and as a result the ball would have to be there you can see quite clearly that that’s a quite a bit further from the original position of the ball Therefore your nearest point of complete Rel Le is on
This side of the cart path even though you’ve got rocks and heavy rough always a good idea to leave your ball until you’ve decided what you’re going to do this might be playable over here maybe not you might be better off uh either taking an unplayable lie or
Hitting it off the cart path so that was just a little review and now we’re going to get into some fancier situations with relief sometimes you find that there are actually two conditions I’ll just quickly do this and then we’ll get to my fanciest one so
This was out I was taking a walk on my uh golf course the other last week I saw these two uh metal things uh these are so far from the play of either the 10th hole or the third hole that I’ve never seen anybody near them but they illustrate uh if you were
Going to the third hole over here uh you have a situation where you’re you’re going to get relief from this your nearest point of relief from this grate is probably going to be there and you’re going to be standing on that grate these are two separate conditions
So you have to deal with I’m going to take relief here and then deal with the other situation I’ll explain a bit more um in our next uh our next slide that I show uh and sometimes what we call the Ping pong rule is you take relief from this
It puts you here to get relief from there it puts you here and in that case I’ll just jump ahead you would find where is your nearest point of relief from both but that’s only after you’ve gone through it separately often happens with temporary water so here we have uh two puddles
Your ball is here you want want relief let me see if I can move the ball oh I can your nearest point of relief for this puddle puts you here and then you would be standing in this puddle well this is a different situation
So the my point here is you don’t get to say oh I don’t have to drop here I get to go over here or somewhere else uh it’s no it’s a separate situation and you deal with each one separately in all likelihood you find this is your nearest
Point of relief you get your relief area uh let’s for the sake of argument say you couldn’t get one where you weren’t standing in this uh this other puddle you go ahead and you drop then you’re standing in the other puddle and now you deal with that
Puddle that one might get you over here who knows where it might get you if it gets you back over here then we say okay that’s our pingpong one put us over there the other one puts us back now we say where’s the spot where I have complete relief from
Both and then one other is oops okay you sometimes get two different types of of conditions so here you get a cart path and a puddle and I’m going to go into that on my next slide okay ignore all these things these are just more toys for me to put into
Place so if we need a grate I’ll take a grade up there if we need another puddle I’ll do that so here we have a rather wide cart path with a bit of temporary water in the middle of it I have a choice I can take relief from the cart
Path which of course would also give me relief from the temporary water or I can take relief from the temporary water see what that leaves me oh no let me take that back don’t wait to see what it leaves you figure out what it’s going to leave you before you decide what to
Do so let’s just do a little bit of measuring here if I take relief from the cart path if I had to go to the left the ball would be here if I need to go to the right my feet would have to go here the ball would have to go
There so now I’m going to figure out where’s my nearest point of relief from the cart path well I’m going to use my clubs to measure let’s just see if I that’s almost two Club lengths away if I go in that direction if I go in this
Direction it’s about a club length so relief from the cart path puts me over here where I don’t want to be this is bad oh there’s rocks everywhere rocks and heavy rough so I don’t want to be there think okay well maybe I’ll just take relief from the
Temporary water let’s see how that would work out well I think I had this all measured uh earlier so I have to get my feet out of the temporary water and the ball would be here it’s still on the cart path let’s just measure it out it’s about a club length away
Or uh oh I had to keep that ball there okay trust me this is closer I measured it all out before so your closest your nearest point of relief from the temporary water only not the cart path puts you here on the cart path which is where which is fine you
Can drop you you get your whole uh you know you get your whole uh Arc and all that uh you’re going to be no clear no no nearer the hole um so you’re going to drop on the cart path and from there in all likelihood you’ll be closer over to this
Side and you’ll take relief from the cart path and you’ll be on the side that you wanted to uh to be on so it’s just an example of uh remembering that you deal with each situation separately and if you think ahead and you say hm here’s where I want to be
You can get sometimes the outcome that you would like uh what you definitely don’t get is the oh I don’t have to drop over here situation if there was a grate over here you would get relief from the grate but it would be a separate situation from the temporary water it’s a separate
Situation from the cart path any questions on that one uh not specifically this one but kind of but related to the cart path relief so can you choose to take your stance on the cart path in the first example and play the ball in the better
Lie oh okay if I understand the question we might be going back to your first drawing Wendy I think that would be easier if I actually went back to that one let’s get rid of all these other uh yeah I think the uh the simplest one here I think uh perhaps this one
Yeah yeah so if you were to say okay I’m on the cart path I want relief from the cart path but I’m oh you know what I can’t move these feet I don’t know what I did that I can’t move the feet but let’s just say the feet would be here um
You say I’m I’m okay standing on the cart path that puts my ball here U that’s closer that’s closer I get to drop on this side uh the answer to that is no because what we used to call uh nearest point of relief uh it included complete
In the description but we called it nearest point of relief now it’s called nearest point of complete relief and that means it’s relief for the lie of the ball for your stance and the area of your intended swing so if you want relief from the cart path it has to be
Completely off the cart path I hope that answers that question and we’ve got another one on this drawing back to the first cart path drawing don’t you still get a one Club relief area in which case you might avoid the Rocks you might yes uh I was tempted uh when I was doing
This to bring in more rocks so that the whole area would be horrible but indeed this is your nearest point of complete relief here and if you uh took your semicircle you know your one Club length you know it would go this way and then you know around this way you might get
Yourself over here which would be fine yeah you have to remember you get the the club length uh CL links are all right here’s one please speak to the Jordan spe scenario he asked the official for relief from obstruction as he said he wanted to hit the ball
Left-handed got initial relief then that relief area included a cart path so he got relief again now he is multiple Club lengths from the original obstruction and he turned around hit the golf ball right-handed yep that’s a it’s it’s perfectly okay I I don’t know which
Tournament that was I thought I had seen was that just this weekend I thought I watched all of that but anyway doesn’t matter yes if you have if you’re if it’s reasonable to play a left-handed stroke and it has to be a little bit more reasonable than the right-handed
Stroke you know so if that’s what you uh could do and as a result it puts you say on a cart path you would get the relief so let’s see I can’t play with this I don’t know what I did to this that I can’t move all
My uh things separately but uh yep it’s one of those uh unusual rules where you’ve got no right-handed shot but you could play left-handed left-handed puts you your stance for example on the cart path you take relief as a left-handed player from the cart path you drop and now you can turn
Around and play right-handed I think we see that with the pros much more often than we see ourselves doing it because most of us can’t play left-handed another one here you seem to be taking nearest point of relief even with the original ball relative to the hole versus dropping behind the ball
Within the semicircle and ending up closer to the original Ball versus a couple of drops away is it always multiple separate points of relief versus closer drop but maybe further away from the hole oh my you’re gonna have to go over that one again that’s a lot of
Words okay so we’re talking about you seem to be taking the nearest point of relief even with the original ball relative to the hole I’m not sure that means the original ball to the whole that’s where I’m a little bit UNC we might need some clarification on this question yeah if that whoever
Did that could um I I think one thing I’ll just clarify and then she can resubmit the question um the first step always is finding the nearest point of relief and the nearest point of relief is where would the ball be if you took complete relief for the
Ball and your stance and your swing and that’s a point somewhere so in this case here this is the nearest point of relief that comes way before any dropping or measuring a club length from there so that’s step one yeah we’ll we’ll wait and see if we can
Get some more information on this question mind there’s a different question coming in not related to this but about a little bit of order of play um and talking about when you have a situation where there’s provisional balls involved can you go over that a little bit yes on the T
If um somebody’s going to play a provisional they go to the back of the line so if there are three people playing and you’re the first to tea off and you hit it towards out of bounds or where it might be lost and you’re going to play a provisional the other two
Players would play before you do and then you would play if multiple people are going to be playing provisional balls you keep the same order that you you had um however out on the golf course I mean out on the hole after after you’ve teed off you’re out on The Fairway or
Something and somebody needs to hit a provisional they would hit that immediately it’s still their turn we assume they were away and uh they would hit the play then thank you I think um I hope that other question question comes in but if it doesn’t uh I really only have one more
Thing that I wanted to uh cover but if others have questions that’s fine I have kind of a fun uh fun funny haha uh video that was sent in with a question so this was on uh Instagram see I’ll put the sound on now the question or this was sent to me
With a serious question uh as you can see when you watch it you’re just going to kind of laugh at what’s happening but I’ll answer the serious question anyway okay so the question was so what are the options in match play and in stroke play and it’s uh
There a lot of wh ifs here uh but I’ll tell you the very first thing is you can see this guy’s friend is holding his feet and that is not permitted in either match play or stroke play so right off the bat we have a situation where in
Stroke play there’s it’s a general penalty so stroke play it’s a two-stroke penalty for getting that heal holding his feet and in match play it’s loss of whole uh for getting that help but let’s just go back to what do we do when we don’t know what to do in
Both match play and stroke play and my answer to that is I don’t know because I’m looking at this and I can’t tell what this is I don’t see any white lines calling it ground under repair I don’t see any red lines or red stakes or yellow stakes so
It definitely could be one of those questionable situations uh so in uh stroke play if you think that it’s ground under repair uh but maybe it’s a penalty area you might play two balls in match play you’re really going to have a tough time deciding what it is
You’re going to hope that your opponent you and your opponent can come to see some agreement on on what it is uh on whether you’re going to take uh I don’t think you’re going to get lie down like that and hit the shot so you’re going either decide whether you’re going
To take relief uh assuming it’s ground under repair or take relief uh as a penalty area uh this is one of those rare situations uh when you know I said before you can’t delay play to get a ruling um if you’re really not sure what
This is I mean I can’t see enough of what’s you know back here I mean this may go the whole length of the hole in which case I’d say oh it’s a penalty area uh or there might be a backhoe right over here which tells me they’re
Working on it and it’s a it’s ground under repair so I don’t know this might be one of the situations though where a quick phone call to the Pro Shop could answer that in a minute you know it’s not something that anybody needs to look
At to to make a ruling uh certainly not one of those situations where when you finish the match and you say oh we’ll call the wga office and Sarah answers the phone or Aaron and go I don’t know I’m not I’m not there I don’t see it so uh
You know that that could be resolved uh because obviously anybody at that club would know what’s happening with this with this situation but I just thought that was kind of fun Wy let’s just go over a couple quick questions that have come in here great is standing among among rocks considered
Complete relief it seems no different than standing on the cart path nope it’s a completely different situation you’ve taken complete relief if you’re standing on the Rocks all right and the clarification clarify one more you know just to make it clear you’re taking relief from the cart path that’s the only thing you’re
Taking relief from and if you end up standing on rocks that’s okay if you end up standing in a 3 inch puddle that’s okay it’s just you’re taking relief from one thing go ahead we received more from that other question so it seems like the first nearest point of relief overrides
All is that correct maybe multiple drops which lands me further away is the chosen spot versus another spot that may be closer but not within the original nearest Point okay I think we’re getting closer I want to answer this question I really do yeah uh so you
Have you find the let me let me just see if uh this diagram might work a little bit better I’m going to take away the puddle and we’re just going to deal with finding the nearest point of relief to get off the cart path I hope that’s what this person is referring to
So to get relief from the cart path when she says first point of relief I think she might mean this one that’s the one I I dealt with first and I said okay if you went to the left the ball would be there your feet would be there it
Doesn’t matter if it’s on rocks and therefore we would measure from here to here and then we’re also going to check check out over here and figure out which one is actually the nearest point of complete relief so let’s just get these uh so this is from
Here a bit more than one Club length if we went in that direction get these feet out of there that was for the puddle if we go in this direction you have to get your feet off the cart path Mo that ball and the ball would be about here
You have to keep in mind that you’re going to be holding a club in your hand so now we have this distance to measure quite a bit farther than one Club length so we’ve we’ve established now that this is the nearest point of complete relief therefore we are going to completely ignore
Going over there this is it now what was the next part of the question I think when we get into multiple drop situations okay I’m not quite sure okay so this is they’re talking about the puddle example that allowed more than one drop further away from the original
Ball so maybe it’s something to do with um when you are in a multiple relief situation you can be more than a certain amount of Club length oh oh okay absolutely yes yes let me just go back to uh the two if this is what this person means
Yes let me get rid of this so let’s just use this example so originally the ball is here you want relief we’re going to call the nearest point of relief you know right about here but that would force you to stand in this puddle which is a different
Situation so you stand in the puddle you take a drop she was talking about multiple drops you drop and you then would decide well are you going to play it where it is so maybe the ball isn’t in the puddle anymore but your feet are or you say I don’t like it
Either way I want relief from my stance you figure out where that would put you and it’s going to put you back in the puddle maybe this is what she means so now you have you’ve gone through the process of taking a drop and then if you take relief from the next
One it’s going to put you back where you were before uh if not exactly at least in the same uh situation now you look at this whole thing as one yeah but it’s only after you’ve done the multiple drops and now you say where do I get relief now from for my stance
And the ball and it might be here so it’s far it’s much farther away than the original uh if this person uh who was asking this is still questioning no problem at all just send me your phone number and I’ll I’ll talk to you right just a few more here Wendy and
Then we’re probably ready to wrap up um so in match play If The Players don’t agree on how to play the whole but they play on who gets the honors on the next te oh good question that would go um so if if it really is
Uncertain uh how how that hole came out sometimes even with the uh uncertainty you know who won you know sometimes it it’s a matter of a one-stroke penalty here or there and so it doesn’t matter but if you don’t know you would uh flip a coin or something you know just
By throw up a tea uh and decide that way and can we use the unplayable ball rule can we use the unplayable ball rule of course I guess inations I would think that they’re asking about any of these situations oh yes yeah you always have
That option you can play uh you can take an unplayable uh ball in any place on the course except in a penalty area the reason if just so you can remember that uh you can’t take it in a penalty area because you already have a way of getting out of
A penalty area you know you take penalty area of relief but sure if you don’t like your options and let me just go back to my uh yeah if we just go back here and you didn’t like that option that’s your close nearest point of relief you could take an unplayable you
Get two Club lengths directly from the ball you know you can’t get off the cart path uh with free cart path relief but an unplayable you get two Club lengths it’s going to get you over here one stroke sure you can do that certainly could be better than
That all right Wendy that’s all I have for now we have some nice thank yous and uh there’s one other question we’ll have to sidebar and get you to answer offline okay all right okay well thank you everybody for joining us and I hope you hope I did all right hope you learned
Yeah Wendy this was great thank you so much for being and you know answering our questions uh you know this concludes our swing series just want to special thank you to Wendy for doing this for us each year I look forward to these sessions and this will be posted on our YouTube
Communications channel in the next day or so all right everyone have a good night
