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!