This brings up an interesting question about a swing. I started out playing left-handed and switched to right handed in my teens. To this day, I can hit a pretty decent shot left handed so I can use a 2 or 3 iron turned backwards and hit a low bounding shot pretty far, or I can turn something like a 9 iron upside down and actually hit an air-borne shot. So, being a foot or so from an OB fence just means I might choose to make a golf stroke but left-handed. This is not impractical for me and it is a normal choice I make a lot. There was a time when I actually considered carrying a left-handed wedge because I chipped pretty well left-handed.
But a ball in a burrowing animal hole already provides for relief, so I can take relief and then depending on how the ball and the one stroke distance no nearer the hole works out, I might have a completely different shot become my best choice. The ball can roll up to two club lengths no nearer the hole so I might well have been prepared to make a normal stroke left-handed and now decide it is better ot go ahead and hit it right handed.
Now there is a case I know where this is not allowed. If my ball is near the cart path and I announce I want to play a left-heanded shot just to get an otherwise unallowed drop that might provide a better lie that would be a penalty or not allowed. In this case, I cannot artificially create a relief situation. Taking relief from something like a cart path is done for your normal or ordinary stance and swing and not some manufactured swing. It is normal for me to swing left handed if a right handed swing might hit a tree or an OB fence. I suspect this situation might require some special considerations and understandings in order for the full intent of the rules to be honored. I have studied the rules and decisions about this fine point and am still not absolutely sure of what is a normal stance and swing is if you can play either way. And it is not unlikely that a controversy might prove me wrong on this dual concept. I know you cannot manufacture an abnormal stance or swing to gain relief. Surely this has come up at some point and there is some decision somewhere that covers it -- maybe Mac O'Grady knows the answer.
