Written by: Darin Green, Senior Director of Rules & Competitions
There is a saying among rules officials; “there are rules officials that have made a mistake, and there are rules officials that will eventually make a mistake.” I have made a few mistakes during my 20 years as a rules official, and I made another one last week..png)
I was officiating the U.S. Open Final Qualifier at The Bear’s Club last Monday and a player waved me in for a ruling. Scott Hend, Australian professional golfer, was playing the 6th hole and hit his tee shot left of the fairway into a natural sandy area. Before Hend reached his ball, a person driving a cart accidentally drove over his golf ball pushing the ball into the sand. Hend waved me over for assistance and he was a little upset because he thought he now had to drop his ball in to the sandy area and would likely have a bad lie. I reassured him he does not drop the ball in this situation. I said “since your ball had a spot on the course and your lie was altered by an outside influence, you simply place a ball in the nearest most similar lie, no nearer the hole.” Hend said, “we never saw the lie, so how do we know?” I replied, “it appears the ball rolled onto this spot so it was most likely sitting nicely on top of the sand, so you can just place a ball a couple inches to the side the plugged spot and play on.” Hend then placed a ball about 2-3 inches to the side of the hole the ball was in and played out the hole.
What did I get wrong?
As I was driving home the next day and recounting the rulings we had, it dawned on me that I made a mistake. When a ball’s lie is altered by an outside influence in sand, the lie must be recreated rather than placing a ball in the nearest most similar lie. I should have instructed Hend to recreate his estimated lie by pushing sand back into the hole that the ball made and then place a ball on top of that sand. Since Hend was acting under the eyes of a rules official, he was in the clear.
See Rule 14.2d(1) for more.
We all make mistakes and fortunately for me and Mr. Hend, this mistake was a very minor one.
