Unplayable Lie In The Bunker

So here are the options.

Option 1 – Take a drop of no more than 2 club lengths no closer to the hole, but still in the bunker incurring a 1 shot penalty

Option 2 – Replay the shot from the original position incurring a stroke and distance penalty

Option 3 – Go back as far as you like in the bunker and drop keeping that spot where your ball laid between you and the hole. This incurs a 1 shot penalty

Today while playing, one of my playing partners ball buried in the edge of the bunker, in a spot where two club lengths got you closer to the hole and you couldn't go any farther back with getting out of the trap.

So was his only option going back to the tee, if he didn't want to try and hit the buried ball?  He did a drop in the bunker and we played on as we didn't want to hold up the group behind us and he was already out of the hole, but wanted the correct ruling if it ever happened again.

I would've played it if it was in a tournament round.

Yes, the only option in that case is stroke and distance

On a tac

Totally disagree Worst case is that you bury the ball even more deeply; still have the problem of having nowhere in the bunker to drop from an unplayable; and realise too late  that the place you played your last stroke was in the side of the bunker.

Mind you, I'm having great difficulty in visualising how you could bury your ball in the edge of a bunker and not have a possible drop not nearer  the hole.

Happened to me in last year's club championship with rain that normally would have closed the course. From front bunker plugged into top of back bunker, anywhere I dropped, the ball would have rolled closer to the hole. Looking back, I should have have played the ball backwards out of the bunker - worst case scenario, I would have dug a hole big enough for the ball to roll forward instead of taking the 14 I took on that hole.

He hit a slice into a slice wind and the angle it hit into the bunker just didn't allow for a drop which would not roll forward closer to the pin. It definitely was a weird spot, I should have taken a picture.

Swing really effing hard, hit behind the ball, a ton of sand and your ball will, at worst, slough toward the bottom of the bunker.**  At best, you might get out.  Problem solved.

**OK, maybe at worst, you'd miss completely. ;)

I've done this.  Pull hook over the back left of the green and buried into the top lip (far back, far left, furthest from the green) where a drop wouldn't even be possible.  Oh, and this was AFTER slicing one right of the green into some tall grass, not finding it, and having to race back to the fairway to re-hit while the guys in my group waited on the green and the guys behind us waited on the tee.

I chunked it into the bottom of the bunker, then hit out, and then .... I don't remember the next part, but I'll just guess/hope that I two-putted from that point for a nice and tidy quadruple bogey 8.

Pretty sure you can place the ball on the spot it hit after 2 rolls. Just can't see how the ball could be in the face of a bunker were option 1 was not available.

Bunkers have more than one face.  Not sure why this is so hard for people to understand.  Picture air-mailing the entire green and plugging into the top of the back face of a bunker behind the green.

That's how.

Not sure I would want to try and place the ball on the severe down slope of a bunker, you'd have to push the ball into the sand so it wouldn't roll.

Exactly

You don't push, you place, if the ball won't stay you place it at the nearest place it will stay.

On a vertical face it wouldn't stay.

One club length will move it from the vertical face

But the one club length or even two moved the ball closer to the hole, the only way to not move the ball closer to the hole was to move it out of the trap, which you can't do.

Here is a possible way out of the predicament.   When taking relief from an unplayable ball under Rule 28c , you have to drop your ball within two club lengths.  That means anywhere within that distance whether just under 2 club lengths, 2 centimetres or whatever.

I'm going right back to the original description because it occurs to me that the phrase I've highlighted in red might suggest that you think that when taking relief from an unplayable ball you have to drop two club lengths away.  You can drop any distance within that maximum - even  just a centimetre if it helped   sort the problem of finding somewhere not nearer the hole.

How does this sound for a solution?

If the face of the bunker is not vertical but has even a slight inclination from the vertical, drop your ball to strike the the face above or where the ball impacted.  It will then bounce further into the bunker nearer the hole.  Re-drop and the ball will do the same.  Then, in accordance with Rule 20-2c(vii), place the ball as near as possible to where it struck the course from the re-drop.  It is highly unlikely that the ball will stay in place, in which case you proceed under Rule 20-3d and place the ball in the nearest part of the bunker, not nearer the hole where the ball stays at rest. If after all that you cannot find a place not nearer the hole where the ball stays put, you still have the option of playing from where you made your previous stroke.

Does anyone see any flaws in that?

(If the face of the bunker is truly vertical, this won't work.  But I wonder how often that would be the case. )