I Need a Ruling, Crab Grass Encroaching Onto Putting Surface

[TapOut64]

Honey Bee golf course in Virginia Beach is an ok course but not real great.  On some greens they have this crab grass, Dallas grass?  Not sure what it is but it is right on the edge of the putting green and grows in the first cut around the green sporadically.  Probably 95% of the first cut is fine but then you have areas like this, where my ball landed after hitting the green and spinning back.  What you can't see is that it was bare dirt below my ball literally 6" from the putting surface.  I was plus 1 through 7 holes at this point, ( real happy as I am a 10.9 handicap) and I skulled the chip and ate a double.  I also played a second ball taking relief and got a par.  So, what does the rules committee here say?  I either shot a 79 or a 77, either way I am pretty happy.

[iacas]

Your ball is not on the putting green, so… I'm not sure what you're looking for here.

Play it as it lies.

P.S. Even if it were on the putting green, unless the area is declared as GUR, there's still not really much you can do there.

[TapOut64]

I am hoping for relief as if this was during a USGA event wouldn't they mark it GUR?  Also, this course doesn't mark anything, even when it's obviously GUR.  Just reaching here.  Guess it's the price I pay for playing a cruddy course. 

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, TapOut64 said:

I am hoping for relief as if this was during a USGA event wouldn't they mark it GUR?  Also, this course doesn't mark anything, even when it's obviously GUR.  Just reaching here.  Guess it's the price I pay for playing a cruddy course. 

They might not mark it as GUR. It's not under repair! But, more importantly… they likely wouldn't be playing at a course with that going on.

[reidsou]

On 9/1/2023 at 3:57 PM, TapOut64 said:

I am hoping for relief as if this was during a USGA event wouldn't they mark it GUR?  Also, this course doesn't mark anything, even when it's obviously GUR.  Just reaching here.  Guess it's the price I pay for playing a cruddy course. 

This was a big question in my club. Expanding on earlier answers...

The definition of GUR says it has to be marked. Only exceptions are animal habitat, material piled for removal (like grass clippings), or a hole made for course maintenance. Unless it is one of these exceptions (or defined in a local rule), there is no such thing as unmarked GUR. This is a common misunderstanding of the definition of GUR - doesn't matter if it could be marked. 

The reason for this is to remove the gray areas. Same as the reason there is no free relief from divots. See "play the ball as it lies" in point 2 of this article,  

[DaveP043]

On 9/1/2023 at 6:57 PM, TapOut64 said:

I am hoping for relief as if this was during a USGA event wouldn't they mark it GUR?  Also, this course doesn't mark anything, even when it's obviously GUR.  Just reaching here.  Guess it's the price I pay for playing a cruddy course. 

I don't know what the USGA might do, but based on my experience in VSGA events, this probably  wouldn't be marked as GUR.

[StuM]

3 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I don't know what the USGA might do, but based on my experience in VSGA events, this probably  wouldn't be marked as GUR.

It is "Ground in need of repair" but clearly not "Under Repair"  

Probably too late, but only idea is to make the tournament organizers aware so they can avoid courses with that problem in the future, or at least have the course address the issue prior to the tournament.  Unfortunately, the day of the tournament is too late for the course to do anything about this.

[DaveP043]

9 minutes ago, StuM said:

It is "Ground in need of repair" but clearly not "Under Repair"  

Probably too late, but only idea is to make the tournament organizers aware so they can avoid courses with that problem in the future, or at least have the course address the issue prior to the tournament.  Unfortunately, the day of the tournament is too late for the course to do anything about this.

That wording, "under repair", can be misleading.  The Committee can mark any area as GUR if they want to.  The guidance from Committee Procedures 2F(1) suggests:

Quote

"In general, when ground conditions are abnormal to the course or it is unreasonable to require a player to play from a specific area, it should be marked as ground under repair."

In this case, this clump of invasive grass doesn't sound like its particularly abnormal, as the course is something of a "cruddy" course, to quote the OP.  

[saevel25]

Golf courses are not perfectly maintained. Unless you have the money to control for such things, you get what you pay for. Even very nice courses have rough spots. It's a tough break but take it as a challenge to try to make a good shot.