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What do the rules say for taking the oscillation relief from a fence if you are standing on a basket trail?
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Golf rules are complicated! Thankfully, we have guru. our Guy rules know the front book to get back. Do you have a question? He has all the answers.
My opponent hit a car that came to rest against a fence. About two legs from the fence goes a carriage trail that runs the length of the road. He had no pace because of the fence, but when he took his attitude, he was standing on the carriage trail and thus insisted he had the right to relieve. I was under the impression that if you have NO Move due to an immovable barrier as a fence, you are not eligible in such relief. Can you clarify? —Russ Bonanno, via email
The Guy rules will sit on the fence, and here’s why. If the fence is being determined by the boundaries, and the position of the ball is such that the stroke is clearly unreasonable due to the fence, then according to the rule 16.1a (3) free relief will NO To be allowed even though the player has interference from the carriage trail.
If it is not a border fence and on the course, however, then the player has interference from two immovable obstacles and can choose from which they want to get relief. If the relief from each jumps back and forth, then they would find relief from both immediately, for definition of the nearest point of complete relief.
So your statement not to get relief when you interfere with an immovable obstacle is off, but it is likely because you did not know how to distinguish the status of the object – the relief is denied when it interferes with something from which you do NO Get free relief makes the stroke clearly unreasonable.
For more facilitation guidelines from our guru, read in…
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I was playing on our member member tour and hit a strange blow. My ball came to rest after a memorial tree, which was directly between my ball and green. I asked for free relief, reasoning that, as a memorial, the tree was not part of the course model. I was denied and told me that I could have received free relief from the memorial stone. Was it right? —Time Muldoon, Buffalo, NY
That sounds right to fix the boy.
Specific trees can be protected by the local rule by making those areas without play, but such treatment is usually reserved for new, growing trees. If the Committee did not make the memorial tree an area without play, then under the definition of obstacles, the memorial plaque itself is the only immovable obstacle and the abnormal course condition that free relief would allow.
Boy rules also should never tell you, er, get relief IN a memorial tree.
