RULES & HANDICAPPING
Ted 3: Little sister gets sweet revenge in grudge match
t’s that time of year again. Yup, my brother’s back in the Valley for Round 3 of our annual golf challenge. He’s such an easy mark when it comes to the rules. And it’s such wonderful payback for all those times my two older brothers played practical jokes on me. This year’s golf outing was at The
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Gallery North in Marana. Marana-a tough desert golf course — this should be fun! The day started out pretty mild — a few balls in the bunker, one in the desert that was found and played. On the fifth hole, he plugged his ball just over the left fairway bunker. He marked the ball, lifted it to see if it was embedded, which it was, cleaned it and dropped it as close as possible to the place where it was embedded. It rolled into the bunker so he picked it up and re-dropped it. Nice job, I must say. I was impressed. He followed Rules 25-2 and 20-1 and 20-2c perfectly. But I knew trouble was lurking ahead
on hole No. 9 — a monster 725-yard, par 5 from the back tees and still daunting from the 575-yard green tees that we played. The drive is difficult — the landing area is generous enough but you really don’t see it from the tee. What occurred next was what
dreams are made of — Ted was completely intimidated on the tee and drove the ball straight right — so far
right that it would have been in the next county had it not been for the lone saguaro that took a hit for the team. There was the ball about 20 feet above the ground embedded in the cactus. Unfortunately, this one was in the cactus and not on the ground. No relief. Unplayable is his only option. Decision 28/11 states that if the ball is in a tree (or in this case a cactus) and the player can identify the ball, he is permitted to use the point on the ground immediately below the place where the ball lay in the cactus as his point of refernce. The bad news was that the desert around the cactus was so thick that he had no place to drop the ball within two club lengths and going back on a line just put him in rocks and more desert. So it’s back to the tee hitting 3.
He was a little flustered at this point but took a mighty whack at it. This time it’s left. We’re not sure where that one went so he announced he would hit a provisional. Again, good job. Oh, my, this one went in the same direction. We’re pretty sure we’ll find one of those balls so we headed off to search. After about two minutes we found one in a bunker and a minute later we found the other unplayable in a bush. But wait — Houston, we have a problem. Ted didn’t think to put different markings on those golf balls.
By Lorraine Thies
They are both identical — Titleist Pro V1 4 with a red dot under the 4. Which one is which? After a few words that I cannot repeat, he mumbled something about not being able to determine which was which and, therefore, both were considered lost. He jumped in the cart heading back to the tee — again. I may be enjoying the moment, but
I can’t let him do that — that would just be mean. I had to tell him about the “get out of jail card” found in Decision 27/11 that states that if both your original and provisional are found —in equity, when the player finds both balls but doesn’t know which was which the player must select one of the balls, treat it as his provisional ball and abandon the other. He chose the ball in the bunker — good choice, bro! Let’s just say the rest of the hole
didn’t get much better — the next ball found the water right. We estimated where it crossed the margin, and dropped the ball on a line behind that point, keeping that point between him and the flagstick. At least he didn’t try the line-of-flight trick again like he has in the past. There’s no reference to line of flight in the rules when it comes to relief from a water hazard. So there is definitely improvement in knowledge. I may not have such an advantage next year. Three more shots to get on the
green, and two putts to seal the deal. Poor guy! His handicap is 22 so he put an 8 on the scorecard. But what was his real score? n Answer on page 38.
www.azgolf.org
The Gallery North, Marana
PREVIEW 2016 | AZ GOLF Insider | 35
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