Know the Rules

A flurry of rulings at the USC Collegiate Invitational

By Jeff Ninnemann
SCGA Assistant Director of Rules and Competitions

I recently worked the USC Collegiate Invitational at North Ranch Country Club and was witness to some of the finest amateur golf played on the West Coast.  It is a 54-hole tournament – 36 holes are played on day one, and 18 holes are played on day two.  On the first day of the tournament, players tee off at 7:30 a.m. via a shotgun start, playing continuously for 36 holes.  It was a dry and mostly sunny day – probably the first clue that things weren’t quite normal.  After all, most years the USC Invitational rivals the British Open for the “tournament contested amongst the worst weather conditions of the year award.”  The morning started off slowly, there wasn’t much action, and I had already frequented the North Ranch Cappuccino machine twice.  Finally, I got my first ruling of the day.

As is the case with many collegiate events, two holes are cut on each putting green so as to allow for the hole locations to be changed after the morning round of play.  Josh Anderson (former CGA Champion) called me over because the “P.M. hole” intervened on his line of putt.  Decision 16/7 tells us that the hole not in use is a “hole made by a greenkeeper” (i.e. Ground Under Repair).  Since Josh’s ball was near the edge of the putting green, he wasn’t sure where to move his ball and furthermore whether it should be placed or dropped.  I advised him that since his ball came to rest on the putting green, he must place his ball at the nearest point of relief – which in this scenario happened to be on the fringe (D. 25-1b/10).  

Elsewhere on the course, two players made “Hole-in-Ones” in the wrong, vacant hole.  Again, since these unoccupied holes are merely holes made by a greenkeeper, the player’s ball simply lies in GUR.  Unfortunately for those players, they had not made aces, but rather had to place their ball at the nearest point of relief and putt to the proper hole (with hopefully just as much luck). 

Here’s where it gets juicy…

The players are instructed by their coaches to place the flagstick into the “P.M. Hole Location” once they’ve completed their morning round.  There were 20 groups of four players competing in the event; thus, on two holes there was both an “A” group and a “B” group.

Just before my lunch break I got a call on my cell phone from Mark Wilson, Director of Golf at NRCC.  Over the past few years working this tournament, I know that when Mark’s name appears on my cell phone it’s because a coach has called him looking for a Rules Official – and it’s usually not pretty.  Mark informed me that the 11A group placed the flagstick in the “P.M. Hole Location” on Hole 10 – the only problem was that the 11B group still needed to play the “A.M. Hole Location” and three of the four players already hit their approach shots onto the green.  “Oh shoot!” (or something similar) I said.  One of our best Rules Officials, Harley Williams, was already at the scene of the crime.  I got on the radio and confirmed what had happened with Harley.  At this point, we needed to stop that group from playing another stroke – this was a doozy!  Three players had hit approach shots to within 15 feet of the “P.M. Hole Location”, and the fourth player was waiting in the fairway for our ruling.  I began fumbling through the index of my Decisions book, as I knew there was a decision regarding moving a hole location during a stroke play competition (the USGA is always kind enough to have something to that effect on their exam!).  I initially found D. 33-2b/1 – a good decision, but not entirely helpful to our situation.  Declaring this round null and void wasn’t even close to being an option – I knew the round would stand, it was just a question of how it would continue.  After reading that decision I noticed the title of the decision directly below it (33-2b/2).  While I certainly don’t know the Rules of Golf in their entirety, I am “virtually certain” (that’s for all you Rules nerds out there) that the situation on Hole 10 at North Ranch is not in the book verbatim.  Nevertheless, 33-2b/2 seemed to be close.  To me, the premise of that decision is that someone has made a stroke towards a hole, which ultimately doesn’t end up being the hole.  How then can we most equitably treat the player who played to a hole that isn’t going to be used? 

When I finally arrived at the tenth green, Harley and I huddled off to the side to think through our options.  The main points we considered were:

1)    Should we have these players return to the fairway and replay their strokes to the correct hole location?

2)    Are players obligated to know that the flagstick may not be marking the location of the correct hole?  Thus, should we force these players to putt to the correct “A.M. Hole Location” even though they measured and hit their approach shots to the incorrect “P.M. Hole Location”?

3)    What is the most equitable resolution for everyone involved?

We quickly dismissed the notion of having these players replay their strokes – after all, there aren’t many “breakfast balls” in the game of golf.  Question two gave us the most trouble, but we ultimately felt that given today’s technology (i.e. Rangefinders), Hole Location Sheets have become almost as obsolete as tape players.  Furthermore, there always exists the possibility that the hole location sheet can be inaccurate.  (As a side note, we didn’t feel that the mischievous practical joker in D. 1-4/3 necessarily applied here.  That decision only contemplates one hole being cut in the putting green – so where else can that decision force the player to putt to?  That decision also attests to the rarity of the “breakfast ball.”)

Our ultimate decision was to follow the procedure outlined in D. 33-2b/2.  We felt that each player in each round should play to the same hole and that it was most equitable to “recreate” a comparable situation for the three players who wrongly played to the “P.M. Hole Location”.  I fetched my “Gotcha” – a dental floss like device designed to measure things like who is away and clearly defining an out of bounds line.  One by one, I measured the distance from each player’s ball to the “P.M. Hole Location” (the hole they had wrongly aimed at).  I then measured that same distance from the “A.M. Hole Location” and Harley visually inspected the break of the original putt, thus allowing us to relocate each ball into a comparable position relative to the correct hole location.  This involved us physically moving each player’s ball marker approximately 20 feet.  As for the fourth player back in the fairway (Bryan Hogan – a regular on the SCGA Tour), we placed the flagstick in the correct, “A.M. Location” and had him play his approach shot accordingly – after all, 76 other players had to. 

All in all, I’m very satisfied with the decision and procedure we followed.  After further thought and consideration, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there are other ways to potentially handle this situation – perhaps you’ll come up with something that makes more sense. 

One More Notable Ruling…
➢    SCGA Match Play Champion Matt Hoffenberg “wiped” his ball between his fingers after he had been asked to lift it under Rule 22-2.  There was some discrepancy between players and coaches as to whether or not Matt actually cleaned the ball; however, D. 21/3 makes it clear that any doubt shall be resolved against the player – Matt incurred a one stroke penalty.

Stupid Rules

By Robert D. Thomas
SCGA Senior Director of Communications

There are Rules and there are stupid rules, as college football fans and golfers discovered today.

In the BYU-Washington football game, Washington's quarterback Jake Locker scored on an athletic six-yard run with two seconds left to pull his team within one point of the favored Cougars. Locker flipped the ball into the air and joined his teammates in celebrating the score, only to be flagged 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. That turned a PAT into the equivalent of a 35-yard field goal attempt, which BYU blocked.

So it's come to this. A rule that was originally put in to prevent taunting opponents nails a kid who drives his team the length of the field and scores with two seconds to go. The officials were technically right to call the penalty but it's a stupid rule.

Bart Bryant can understand the frustration, at least if the media reports are accurate. According to the Associated Press, "Martin Laird tamped down his own pitch mark on the fringe of the 16th green during the second round, which he was not supposed to do because it was in the line of Bryant's ball in the rough. The fact Bryant said, "Yes" when Laird asked if it was in his line meant Bryant was penalized because he allowed his line to be improved. Laird was not disqualified because it was not his intent to help Bryant, who chipped well over the mark."

I'm not at all sure why Brant was penalized. There are several decisions that seem to state that, in similar situations, a player is entitled to the lie and line of play when his ball came to rest.

Consider, for example, Rule 13-2/8.5:
Q: A's ball is on the apron between the green and a bunker. A's partner, opponent or fellow competitor (B) plays from the bunker and deposits on or around the ball. Is A entitled to any relief?
A: Yes. A is entitled to the lie and line of play (my bold face) he had when his ball came to rest. Accordingly, in equity, (Rule 1-4), he is entitled to remove the sand deposited by B's stroke and lift his ball and clean it, without penalty.

I don't see any difference between Bryant's situation and this decision, other that it was a pitch mark that altered the line of play instead of sand. In fact, the question Bryant answered wasn't whether he wanted it repaired, merely was it in his line. I assume that the Rules officials were guided by Decision 13-2/36, which essentially says that Bryant would have had to tell Laird, "Don't fix it," to avoid getting a penalty.

And, to top it off, Laird — the guy who actually broke the rule and asked the question — didn't draw a penalty because, according to the report, "it was not his intent to help Bryant, who chipped well over the mark." If it wasn't, then why did he ask the question?

In this case, I can't decide whether it's a stupid rule or one misapplied. Neither option is good. Maybe some Rules official can educate me — it wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

Sergio and the gopher

By Michael Sweeney
SCGA Director of Rules and Competitions

If Ridgewood Country Club doesn’t have a Carl Spackler on staff it may want to start looking for one. For those of you who don’t know, Spackler is the gopher-obsessed assist­ant superintendent played by Bill Murray in the film Caddyshack. If you haven’t heard about the story of Ser­gio Garcia and the gopher hole, you must have missed the exciting final round of The Barclays at Ridgewood CC last week, the first playoff event in this year's PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup.

At The Barclays, Garcia finished in a three way tie with Vijay Singh and Kevin Sutherland. Garcia and Singh drained 25 and 24 footers for birdies to eliminate Sutherland on the first playoff hole.

Garcia’s second shot on the second playoff hole (hole 17) ended up behind a huge red oak tree. It looked as though Garcia did not have a line to go directly at the green; he would have to slice or hook a shot around one of the sides of the tree. But as Garcia looked at the terrain on which his ball lay, he noticed something out of the ordinary. Garcia’s ball had ended up above or around a number of gopher or mole tunnels and holes. At this point he waived over PGA Tour Rules Official Slugger White for assistance.

Under Rule 25 (Abnormal Ground Conditions, Embedded Ball and Wrong Putting Green) a player is entitled to free relief when a ball lies in or touches the condition or when the condition interferes with the player’s stance or the area of his intended swing. Under the Rules, an Abnormal Ground Condi­tion is defined as any casual water, ground under repair or hole, cast or runway on the course made by a burrowing animal, a reptile or a bird. A Bur­rowing Animal is defined as an animal (other than a worm, insect or the like) that makes a hole for habitation or shelter, such as a rabbit, mole, groundhog, gopher or salamander.

As White and Garcia looked closely at the terrain, they both noticed an animal popping its head out of the ground about five feet away from Garcia’s ball. Garcia went over to take a closer look and even pulled apart turf to expose the obvious gopher hole. White deter­mined that this was sufficient evidence to rule that he would grant relief to Garcia claiming there were runways from the burrowing animal interfering with his stance and lie of ball. White then assisted Garcia in determining his nearest point of relief. Garcia then dropped a ball within one club length of his nearest point of relief and was able to play a hooking shot around the tree towards the green.

While many people may say this was a lenient ruling, none of us sitting on our couches at home could truly see the actual condition of the turf around Garcia’s ball and whether there were actual casts or runways there. I have also heard the argument that Garcia should not have been given the drop because he had no shot at the green with the tree in his way. The exception under Rule 25 states a player may not take relief under this Rule if it is clearly unrea­sonable for him to make a stroke because of interference by anything other than an abnormal ground condi­tion. In Garcia’s case, this exception would not apply as he clearly had the opportunity to make a stroke at the ball in some direction around the tree. The exception does not apply if any reasonable stroke exists, even if it is not a stroke at the hole, and despite the fact that after relief the player does have a stroke at the hole.

There are a number of Decisions on The Rules of Golf that deal with Rule 25 and specifically burrowing animal hole relief sim­ilar to Garcia’s situation (note that Decision 25-1b/22 deals with the exact Garcia situation):

Decision 25-1b/19: Ball Lies on Mound Made by Burrowing Animal; Unreasonable to Play Stroke Due to Bush

Q. A player’s ball lies under a bush and it is clearly unreasonable for the player to play a stroke at it. However, the ball lies on a mound made by a burrowing animal. Is the player entitled to relief without penalty under Rule 25-1b?
A. Under the Exception to Rule 25-1b a player may not obtain relief from an abnormal ground condition if it is clearly unreasonable for him to play a stroke due to interference by something other than such a condition. Therefore, in the circumstances described, the player is not entitled to relief.

Decision 25-1b/22: Cast of Bur­rowing Animal Interferes with Side­ways Stroke; When Relief Granted

Q. A ball is behind a tree so that a sideways stroke is the only reasonable stroke for the player. However, a cast made by a burrowing animal interferes with the backswing for a sideways stroke. Is the player entitled to relief under Rule 25-1b?
A. Yes, and if relief gets the player out from behind the tree, he is entitled to play towards the green.

This was a good example of a player knowing the appropriate Rule and, therefore, taking proper advantage of the Rule. That’s something for all of us to ponder.

Sorry, Michelle; scorecards are the player's responsibility

By Robert D. Thomas
SCGA Senior Director of Communications

Few things cause more problems when it comes to golf tournaments than scorecards, as was proven again at this weekend’s SCGA AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP and the LPGA State Farm Rail Classic.

At the SCGA Amateur, Mark Nickeas, the Saticoy Country Club champion, was in sixth place after the first two rounds but disqualified himself before his third round on Saturday after he realized that he had signed for a score lower than he actually took (had he signed for a score higher than he took, the score would have stood and he wouldn’t have been DQed).

At the LPGA tournament, Michelle Wie was disqualified on Saturday following an incident on Friday when she left the scoring area not having signed her scorecard. A volunteer working at the score table went after her when she realized the card had just one signature and got Michelle to sign the card. The next day, when LPGA officials learned what had happened, they spoke to Wie after her third round was completed and subsequently disqualified her for leaving the "scoring area" without signing her card.

Oddly enough, we dealt with both of these issues (and a few others) in a Know the Rules column in the September/October 2007 issue of FORE Magazine MORE.

As I said in that column, more players are disqualified for not having two signatures on a scorecard than for any other reason. It’s almost always the first question we ask at the scoring table: “Do you have two signatures on the scorecard?” But whether or not that question is asked, as the above column notes, it’s ultimately the player’s responsibility to follow all the Rules before turning in his or her scorecard.

How about that Open!

By Michael Sweeney
SCGA Director of Rules and Competitions

I was fortunate enough to be invited to work as a member of the Rules Committee at this year’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Wow, what a tournament! It had everything you could want and more: a spectacular host venue, the ultimate pairing of the big three (Tiger, Phil and Adam), Tiger and Rocco in a dramatic playoff and a few rulings along the way as well.

The U.S. Open Rules Committee consists of invited officials from golf tours and associations from around the world, as well as members of other USGA Championship Committees. The USGA likes to have a referee walk with each group in all its championships to assist with any rulings or pace of play issues that come up. This helps to ensure that all players receive Rules assistance in a timely and consistent manner.

My assignment for the first round was as an observer for the Angel Cabrera, Padraig Harrington and Davis Love III group. In the second round I was the Referee for the Kevin Streelman, Robert Dinwiddie and Artemio Murakami group.

Streelman started the second day as the leader. That would all change when he made his way to the par-3 third hole. Streelman hit his 7-iron tee shot a little heavy and it ended up in the greenside bunker with a nasty buried lie. He later said it was like someone had stepped on the ball in the bunker. He played a solid bunker shot out but the green would not hold it and it ended up rolling over the green and down into a playable position in the lateral water hazard.

As Streelman was evaluating his next shot from the lateral water hazard he waved me over. His ball was lying partially in some dry brush and a small bush that he would have to stand in to play his shot. Laying over the bush was a green television microphone cable that was running through the entire hazard to a microphone on the left side of the green. Streelman’s swing and stance would be impeded by this cable so he asked me if he could move it. I informed him that the cable was a movable obstruction and the Rules allow for movable obstructions to be moved anywhere on the course, including bunkers and water hazards. I helped him move it out of the way and he played his shot out of the hazard to the middle of the green and then three-putted for triple bogey.

Decision 24-2b/15.3 (Status of Movable Part of Drainage Hose) is a comparable situation to this ruling. It asks: In a water hazard, a player’s swing is interfered with by a drainage hose. One end of the hose is immovable, i.e., it is anchored in the ground. However, that part of the hose interfering with the player’s swing can readily be moved to one side or the other. Is the player entitled to move the hose to the side so that it does not interfere with his swing? Answer: Yes, since the part of the hose interfering with the player’s swing is designed to be movable.

Despite the train wreck on the third hole, Streelman was able to re-group and play some great golf ... that was, until his tee shot on the par-4 15th hole. He pulled his drive left over the gallery watching from behind the ropes and into a hillside behind the concessions stands. The hillside was covered with ice plant and was marked as a lateral water hazard. No one had heard the ball land. After searching for awhile I talked to the volunteers working the hole to try to get a point of reference as to where his ball entered the hazard.

Finally after about three minutes of searching Streelman found his ball in the ice plant. He picked it up and informed me that he would take a drop from the lateral water hazard. I was able to identify where his ball last crossed the margin of the hazard and this point was directly next to a cart path. Streelman measured two club-lengths to identify his area in which he could drop (this was on the cart path). He dropped the ball on the cart path, it bounced twice and ended up a foot to the right of the cart path in the rough. His ball was now in play as it had not rolled closer to the hole or more than two club-lengths from where it struck the course on the drop.

At this point Streelman would now be standing on the cart path. He decided to take his free relief from the path and dropped within one club-length from his nearest point of relief. Finally with a ball back in play and no obstruction interference he played a shot to the green and ended up taking a double bogey on the hole.

Those were the only two rulings I had during my two-day stint as a Rules Official at the Open. I did watch the weekend coverage on TV and saw an interesting situation with Brandt Snedeker. On the ninth putting green, Snedeker had marked and lifted his ball. While bending over to get closer to the ball marker, his ball slipped out of his hand and landed on top of the marker and subsequently moved it.

Snedeker’s problem was that this accident was not “directly attributable” to the process of replacing his ball. If you saw the coverage on Sunday you heard USGA Executive Director David Fay referencing Decision 20-1/15 (meaning of Directly Attributable in Rules 20-1 and 20-3a), which covers this exact situation.

The Decision asks: What is meant by the phrase “directly attributable to the specific act” in Rules 20-1 (Lifting and Marking) and 20-3a (Placing and Replacing)? Answer: In Rule 20-1 the phrase means the specific act of placing a ball-marker behind the ball, placing a club to the side of the ball, or lifting the ball such that the player’s hand, the placement of the ball-marker or the club, or the lifting of the ball causes the ball or the ball-marker to move.

In Rule 20-3a the phrase means the specific act of placing or replacing a ball in front of a ball-marker, placing a club to the side of the ball-marker, or lifting the ball-marker such that the player’s hand, the placement of the ball or the club, or the lifting of the ball-marker causes the ball or the ball-marker to move.

Under either Rule, any accidental movement of the ball or the ball-marker which occurs before or after this specific act, such as dropping the ball or ball-marker, regardless of the height from which it was dropped, is not considered to be “directly attributable” and would result in the player incurring a penalty stroke.

The Referee in Snedeker’s group properly issued him the one stroke penalty.

I hope you all enjoyed the Open as much as I did. Let’s hope 1994 SCGA Amateur Champion and this year’s US Open Champion, Tiger Woods returns to the Tour healthy and at full strength next year.
__________________

Reprinted from FORE Magazine's July/August 2008 issue. © copyright 2008, Southern California Golf Association. This article may be reprinted with appropriate attribution.

LINK: It's a little late for Stewart Cink ...

USGA ANNOUNCEMENT

Followup on the Stewart Cink DQ

From Mike Sweeney, SCGA Director of Rules and Competitions

I've been getting a lot of questions from SCGA members on the DQ of Stewart Cink last week (see the post below this one). As a few of you have pointed out, this exact scenario was on our 2006 SCGA Rules of Golf Quiz for SCGA Rules Committee members (Question 45):

On the fourth hole of the Staff Championship at the SCGA Golf Course, Mike’s drive came to rest just outside of the fairway bunker. His ball was positioned such that he had to stand in the bunker in order to play his ball which lay outside the bunker. He hit a 3-wood advancing his ball all the way up and into a greenside bunker. After the stroke, Mike raked his footprints in the bunker and moved on to the greenside bunker.
A. Mike has proceeded correctly.
B. Mike incurs a two-stroke penalty.
C. Mike incurs no penalty unless this raking assists his in his subsequent play of the hole.
D. You may never rake a bunker if your ball lies in that bunker or a similar bunker.

As you all probably have heard now it is a two-stroke penalty, which Cink did not add to his scorecard, causing him to be disqualified.

The Cink ruling is a situation NCGA Director of Education Gail Rogers encountered two years ago. She had this exact scenario happen to her in a casual round of golf at Pasatiempo GC and posed the question to the USGA. Two of the USGA's top rules officials, Jeff Hall and John Morrissett, disagreed on an answer (which is why we're guessing it didn’t make the Decisions on the Rules of Golf this year). One of them went by the letter of the law (a penalty) and the other thought they had to resort to equity and maintaining the golf course (no penalty). We omitted it from our test because they couldn’t provide us a decisive answer but it was on the test originally because it can happen…as Cink just showed us!

Whoever said The Rules of Golf made sense?

Usually this far into the PGA Tour season, we’ve had several interesting situations involving The Rules of Golf, but this year has been remarkably quiet … until Stuart Cink’s snafu in last weekend’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans. What happened to Cink is why so many people hate The Rules of Golf (and/or the people who write them).

Cink, as you have read or seen, was disqualified during the final round for signing an incorrect scorecard (kudos to NBC Commentator Roger Maltbie for explaining the reason correctly). Why he signed the incorrect story was quite a story.

During the third round, Cink’s drive came to rest on a mound next to, but not in, a bunker. Cink had to stand in the bunker to play the shot, which subsequently landed in a greenside bunker about 180 yards away. As Cink went up to play his third shot, his caddie raked the bunker where Cink had stood. Cink went on to make bogey on the hole and signed for a scorecard with that number on it.

The next day, Cink related the story to Zach Johnson, who suggested he consult a Rules official. According to Johnny Miller on the telecast, it took quite a while to figure out that Cink’s caddie had violated Rule 13-4a, which prohibits a player from “testing the condition of the hazard, or any similar hazard.” (The same prohibition applies to the player’s caddie).

The words “or any similar hazard” raised a big series of questions on the NBC telecast and on The Golf Channel afterwards. As TGC’s Brandel Chamblee pointed out, the ruling puts the player between a rock and a hard place. The PGA Tour fines players when a caddie doesn’t rake a bunker but it also fines them for slow play; the latter certainly could have come into play if the caddie had gone forward with Cink and then had to come back to rake the bunker. Moreover, as Chamblee pointed out, what happens if another player hits a ball into the unraked bunker? How fair is that? (Of course, to quote a famous adage, whoever said golf was fair?)

Then there’s the whole issue of how does a player gain an advantage if it’s the caddie that does the raking? In this case, the player had already, in effect, tested the surface of the first bunker when he took a stance in it, so what else could he have learned?

Finally, suppose Cink had hit his ball into a bunker on the next or a subsequent hole. Shouldn’t the rule apply to that situation, as well? What’s the difference?

Oh, yes, the incorrect scorecard. Once it was determined that Cink should have assessed himself a two-shot penalty, that means he signed for a scorer lower than what his actual score should have been. That, as we often say, is trunk-slamming time. In this case, it may have been the correct ruling but there's a big difference between "correct" and "right."

— Robert D. Thomas

On Slow Play

Normally post-round television interviews range from midly interesting to banal (tending toward the latter). However, yesterday's interview with Angela Park proved to be illuminating although probably not in the way that Park wanted.

Park, who was born in Brazil but grew up in Torrance, was assessed a two-stroke penalty for slow play following the 10th hole in the final round of the LPGA Tour's SBS Open in Hawaii. By the time her round had finished, she was still angry with the decision and what she said to Mike Riks demonstrated that she — like many of her colleagues — doesn't understand the rule or why it's there.

Although the LPGA doesn't post its slow-play rules on its Web site, from the actions of tournament officials and later reports, it appears that players have to maintain their position on the course (which is usually defined as playing in a certain amount of time for each hole and being within a certain number of minutes of the group in front of them). When a group gets out of position, an official uses a stopwatch to measure the amount of time it takes a player to make a shot. According to published reports, Park exceeded the allotted time limit on her second, third and fourth shots on the hole and, thus, received the two-shot penalty.

Park's first comment was she didn't think the penalty was fair because "we weren't holding anyone up." That's probably the single thing that players simply don't understand when it comes to this issue. What's behind you is of no relevance when it comes to enforcing slow-play rules; what's happening with your group and the group in front are the only things that matters.

Second, Park said she didn't think the penalty was fair because she was in contention (she was a shot off the lead at the time). Sorry, Angela, that's not the way the rules work. To the LPGA's credit, a player's position in the field has no bearing on assessing a penalty in this situation.

Finally, Park noted that she was so mad that they "flew" through the back nine, making three birdies to finish a shot off of the lead. One would think that might be a self-evident statement to Park about her own play, but apparently not.

Whatever a tournament's policy (and there are many ways to handle the slow-play issue), there's a simple two-word answer to the problem: play faster.

By the way, the turtles were in evidence at the PGA Tour's Northern Trust Open at Riviera CC yesterday. Playing in groups of three and teeing off at 10:20 a.m., the final group (Phil Mickelson, Jeff Quinney and Robert Allenby) still had the 18th hole to play when the telecast ended yesterday at 3 p.m. That means their third round took nearly five hours to play. Mickelson's group didn't appear to have a big gap in front of it but somewhere up front were some exceedingly slow players. Two-shot penalties have a way of getting players' attentions but when's the last time a PGA Tour player got that kind of penalty?

One from the inbox

Q: I was playing "Beat The Pro" with my club professional. The first hole is a par 3 over a lake. One of the players teed off and hit the ball very close to going in the lake except no one saw a splash. We went to the area where the ball either went into the water or would be on the fairway beyond the water. We searched but could not find the ball until the pro found it, embedded in the lip of the lake where the fairway was edged around the lake. The water hazard was marked with yellow stakes with no connecting yellow boundary lines. Drawing a sight line between the two stakes on each side of the embedded ball, as you would do for an OB test, it was determined that the ball was outside that line. The pro ruled that the ball was not in the hazard and was embedded in its own divot (mark) and, thus, the player could lift, clean and drop the ball no closer to the hole without a penalty. What is the ruling?

A: The player proceeded correctly. Since the ball was outside the hazard, the player could take relief under the embedded ball rule, dropping it as near as possible to wear it lay but not nearer the hole. (This ruling applies when the local rule providing relief for an embedded ball through the green has been adopted. If this local rule is not adopted players are only entitled to embedded ball relief in any closely mown area through the green (Rule 25-2).

— Mike Sweeney, SCGA Director of Rules and Competitions