I just saw this on The Big Break and I really don’t know the answer although I feel I should. It’s just something I’ve never thought about before.
The shot in question involves a ball landing just on the hazard line (not a bunker or water hazard, but some beachline vegetation that is marked by a painted line.) The ball was definitely not in the hazard, but if the player grounded their club behind the ball, it would be outside of the hazard line. I’ve always played by the rule that you can’t ground your club in a hazard, but I never considered the rule if the ball itself was not in the hazard.
Is it a violation to ground your club in such a situation?
Think of this situation in practical terms (although I’ll freely admit that the terms “practical terms” and “rules of golf” don’t normally appear in the same sentence). The reasoning behind not being allowed to ground your club in a hazard is that this is a way of testing the condition of the hazard before your shot, and that’s what they don’t want you do do. If your ball isn’t in the hazard then there’s no advantage to testing the hazard.
Water hazards (and bunkers) are especially tricky on matters concerning grounding your club. If your ball lies on a bridge spanning a water hazard, you may ground your club on the bridge. If your ball touches a line defining the margin of the water hazard, you are permitted to ground your club outside the hazard.
Before you rag on the player that reported the infraction, the player could have been penalized (or disqualified) from the tournament for “not protecting the field” and the player could have been DQed if someone reported the infraction after she had signed her scorecard.
But it is a stupid and ignorant golf rule. I guess the caddy could have found the nearest tree, or he could have delayed play by hoofing to the nearest “Johnny on the Spot”
The line itself is part of the hazard, and a ball touching any part of a water hazard is considered to be in the hazard. So a ball touching the hazard line is in the hazard.
This is different than in the case of out of bounds. If there is a line marking OB, then the line itself is considered OB. However, a ball is OB if all of it lies OB, so it’s possible to have a ball touching the line but still be in bounds.
You hit your ball towards a water hazard. You find your ball outside the hazard. but in the process, you spot a brand Titleist Pro V1x in the shallow water, within the hazard. you grab a club to rake the ball towards you. No one is going to accuse you of grounding your club in a hazard.
Yeah. If your ball is not in the hazard, then there’s no restriction about grounding your club in the hazard.
If your ball is in the hazard, then the restriction is that you can’t ground your club inside the hazard. You could have a situation where the ball is in the hazard but right on the hazard boundary, so it’s legal to ground the club behind the ball. It’s basically the same as people preparing for a bunker shot with practice swings outside the bunker.
You haven’t played with some of the people I have.
Just to clarify, in the show the ball was not touching the line, but only by millimeters. Placing the club behind the ball, it would be on the other side of the line.
I remember watching the US open and seeing a player treacherously making their way down a cliff in order to see the playability of their ball in the hazard. They slipped and put out their hand onto the cliff to prevent themselves from falling, and immediately looked to the rules guy there about whether he had made a violation. I was wondering what exactly was wrong, but by the above quote what he did was actually against the rules. I’m guessing it was waved off as a natural reaction to being in the the situation, but if the rules believe that feeling the ground with one’s hand might lead to an advantage in playing the ball, even doing so unintentionally would potentially be an advantage.