Squirrel Hole in Sand Trap

When I was playing in the 110-120 range, I did not pay attention to rules as much since I knew I was still learning to play.  Now I am in the mid 80's to mid 90's range and most likely in the high 80's.  Now every situation and swing counts as you can imagine.

I had a situation where I hit my first shot in the fescue grass.  I hit out of it well but just short of the green and the ball went landed on the high side of the sand trap.  This sand trap was pretty hard sand if not hard dirt.  But the ball did not roll down instead a squirrel/gopher had dug up a hole and there was a platform/ledge so my ball was stuck.  It was very steep and I had to hit the ball to the side as the lie was in no way favorable.

Should I have taken a free drop?

I would like some feedback!  Thank you in advance.

Welcome to the site and congrats on getting your game in great shape! I'm in a similar boat handicap-wise so I'm also trying to be more cognizant of the Rules than I had been when I was shooting triple figures. That said, and I'm sure people with more knowledge will chime in, I'm not sure why the animal hole here should factor in. It seems like your ball is well outside of the hole (and, the picture might be skewing things) and it looks like you have a pretty decent lie that is similar to everything around it, so I don't really see that the existence of the hole is affecting things. Seems like you could've just opened up the face and popped the ball straight up from underneath the ball. But irrespective of that, from a Rules perspective, I don't see why you would get a free drop.

It's actually much more steeper than the picture looks so I could not hit the ball.  But if the squirrel hole was not there the ball would have rolled down to the bottom of the sand trap.  The ball stayed up there because there was a ledge.

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank you!

Others have picked up on whether there was interference or not, but there is another aspect to the matter.  You need to be sure that the hole was made by a burrowing animal. The  alternatives you gave  were  a squirrel  which is not a burrowing animal and a a gopher which is a burrowing animal.

LOL.  Some of the older courses in North San Diego have a major squirrel problem and they do burrow even though they are not gophers!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveP043

With all due respect, whichever animal created that hole has has become, based solely on its behavior, a burrowing animal.

I still have it saved in my copy / paste memory from the Bubba's ants thread, haha. You're absolutely right. The example of gopher is just part of a non-exclusive list. An indeterminate animal, which isn't one of the excluded groups like insects, made a burrow hole. That's the end of the analysis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnGolf

LOL.  Some of the older courses in North San Diego have a major squirrel problem and they do burrow even though they are not gophers!

Someone should get those squirrels a copy of the Rules so they know that they apparently aren't supposed to be burrowing animals, haha.

It doesn't matter how or whether the hole affected the final resting place. The only thing that matters is whether or not the hole interferes with your stance or swing...

It almost looks like a flop shot is possible? Just don't blade it!

Yeah, I practice this specific shot for fun. You can come in hard right underneath it and it pops almost straight up.

One gets relief from interference by both the hole and the cast (the dirt shoved out of the ground when the hole was made).  If the ball is sitting on the cast, relief would be allowed.

I wouldn't interpret cast liberally in this case, though. The area around the hole seems pretty similar to area farther away from it. And it's clearly been raked by the grounds crew that day. There's little clumps of sand, but I don't think that came from the burrow hole. More likely partially kicked up by the ball impact. I would still not see relief as being appropriate.

An animal which makes a hole does not become a burrowing animal by virtue of its behaviour in having made a hole.  There are non-burrowing animals which make holes - the example in the Definition being a dog: it does not become a burrowing animal just because it has dug a hole.    Similarly, a squirrel may make a hole to bury a nut, but that does not make it a burrowing animal.  Dogs and squirrels (at least the ones I know of) do not make burrows to live or shelter in - which is the criterion for being a burrowing animal in terms of the rules.