If you are a Mario Kart driver OR The O’Doyles IN Billy Madisonyou’ve learned the hard way: banana peels are bad news.
But they are not often a hindrance in professional golf.
So when Rory McIlroy’s ball landed in a clump of tall grass during Saturday’s third round at the Australian Open in Royal Melbourne wonderful, coolit seemed especially unfair that his ball had also was placed inside a banana peel.
“I know, it was kind of a double whammy,” McIlroy said in his post-round interview. “It was in that little tuft of long grass and then the banana skin on it, but I shouldn’t have been there in the first place, it was a terrible hit.
The shell problem raised an interesting question: Why couldn’t McIlroy settle down?
He was asked about the possibility after the round and said he hadn’t even bothered to call a rules official.
“No, because I assumed I wouldn’t,” McIlroy said. “The banana, it’s a loose obstacle and it rested on the ball. So if I moved the banana peel, the ball would move. I just didn’t even try.”
Here’s where things get interesting. The USGA defines “loose obstacles” as “unattached natural objects” and uses examples of leaves, branches, or blades of grass. Golf fans are used to watching golfers remove clubs around their golf ball, because if you move a loose obstacle and your ball moves as a result, that’s a one-stroke penalty. (More in rule 15 if you’re into that sort of thing.
However, there is an adjacent rule that would have given McIlroy more leeway. “Moving obstacles” can be moved anywhere, anytime, and if your ball moves in the process, don’t worry – you can replace it without penalty.
Movable obstacles are defined as “Artificial objects that can be moved with reasonable effort such as a water bottle, a report card, a broken thesis, a trash can, a bench, etc.
So is a banana peel closer to a stick – or a water bottle?
Dig a little deeper at the USGA list of definitions and you’ll find some other examples of natural objects, such as animal waste (bleach, no goose poop relief), dead animals (double bleach, no dead goose relief), snow (not particularly related, but interesting), and spider webs (this).
Anyway, it’s my understanding and one Aussie rules expert – plus, apparently, McIlroy’s – that a banana peel is one natural instead of artificial object. This makes it a loose barrier rather than a movable barrier. This meant that he could not move it without risking a penalty. And that means McIlroy played his next shot without much success at all, sending banana scraps flying on his way to double.
A bad banana split.
McIlroy bounced back admirably from his struggles on the second hole; he took No. 3 and added birdies in five of his final 10 holes to post a three-under 68. That leaves him T24, nine shots off the third-round lead of Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen.
