The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.
During a stroke-play tournament, I drove a ball into the bush of an unfenced backyard with no stakes or markers in sight. As we rode up, we found a woman retrieving my ball from the bush. She asked whose ball it was and tossed it to me. Given that the ball was clearly in the bush before it was retrieved, I decided to take lateral relief for an unplayable. Another player in the group said there was an additional two-stroke penalty for playing from the wrong place: His view was that I needed to have the woman replace the ball where it had been before taking relief. After a calm discussion, he was overruled. Did we get it right? —Al Zolin, Brookshire, Texas
Sounds like it, although Rules Guy would have paid good money to see you ask the nice lady to please put the ball back in the bush where she found it — that would have been a hoot!…