Rules Story Thread

[ChetlovesMer]

I thought it might be fun to create a thread where people could post their stories about the rules of golf. Not questions about the rules (That's a different thread) but stories about when you learned a rule or when an interesting rule had to be applied etc. 

I'll start:

When I showed up to play in my first ever golf tournament (this was early 2000's). I opened my bag to find my wife had played a little practical joke on me. The night before the tournament she had taken all of the golf balls out of my bag and written "I love you, Chet" and drawn little hearts in red sharpie multiple times on every golf ball. (back then I used a white golf ball. Callaway, I think.)

Anyway, near the end of the first round teeing off on the par-5 fifteenth hole, which runs parallel to hole 16. I was fighting a snap hook at the time and over compensated, hitting a fade into the tree line between the two fairways. The ball comes to rest in the right rough just off the fairway on hole 16. My cart-mate and I head over and I see a guy on 16 addressing what looks like my ball. He's not in our tournament as I was in the lead group that day. He's just out there playing with his buddies. I yell at him "Wait! ... Wait! ... Wait!..." 

He looks up at me. I can clearly see there is red sharpie on the ball. I can't quite read it from where I am but there's a lot of red sharpie on it. "I think you are about to hit my ball." I say to him.
"No, I'm not." He looks at his buddies who are waiting for him to hit his shot. 

"Are you sure?" I'm trying to get close enough to actually read the ball. But by this point I'm pretty sure it's mine. Who else would have that much red sharpie all over their ball? 

"It's my ball." He says and actually starts to take his swing. 
"Wait! ... Wait! ... Don't hit it!" I shout at him. 
He actually stops his swing. 

"I'm pretty sure that ball says 'I love you, Chet' on it and has hearts drawn on it. ... Is that how you mark your ball too?" 

He looks at the ball. Looks at his buddies. Looks at the ball. Looks at his buddies. Then in a huff he picks up the ball says "F**K YOU!" and throws the ball at me. 

I dodge the ball; It whizzes past me. He stomps off, pouting, with his buddies laughing at him. One of his buddies gives me a shrug and a half hearted apologetic look. 

Now the rules part. He threw my ball right into the middle of the 15th fairway. Leaving me a much better shot than having to negotiate the ball back through the trees. From where my ball was now I might even be able to reach the par-5 in two. At the time I was unsure if I got to play the ball from where it now was, or if I had to replace it from where he picked it up. Now I know that a pissed off brat throwing your ball qualifies as an outside influence and the ball needed to be replaced back as near as possible to where it was before the guy picked it up and threw it at me. That was the day I learned about Rule 9.6 and Rule 14.2. 

[p1n9183]

For one second I thought the prank was to leave you without any balls in the bag to play the tournament. 

There are plenty of guys that have no idea that plays other peoples balls. Even on my club there are people that go out and play with yellow range balls that are prohibited.

Sometimes the rules are in your favor.. in this case it doesn't but if he would throw it OB then they will be acting in your favor.   

[ChetlovesMer]

1 hour ago, p1n9183 said:

Sometimes the rules are in your favor.. in this case it doesn't but if he would throw it OB then they will be acting in your favor.   

Or stomped it into the ground in anger. 👍😁👍

              ..... In truth, I thought his reaction was a bit unwarranted. I mean plenty of people have thrown things at me on the golf course, but that's usually after riding around for 18 holes with me. 🤣

[DaveP043]

4 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

That was the day I learned about Rule 9.6 and Rule 14.2. 

As I've mentioned (ad nauseum) before, I volunteer as a Rules Official a good bit, including a number of junior events.  On Monday we were at a course that had had about 2 inches of rain the previous day, so a number of bunkers had standing (temporary) water in them.  Not every player was impacted, but I suggested that a whole lot of them should review 16.1c.  It would have a lot more impact, be more memorable, now that they saw the conditions that the rules address.  We all learn the rules one little bit at a time.

[Ty_Webb]

I played in Open Qualifying about 25 years ago. I got to the last hole - I shan't share my score, but it wasn't good. It's a long uphill par 4 with the clubhouse just long left of the green. The clubhouse is out of bounds. I hit my second shot left and it got a firm bounce. Get up there and the clubhouse has a patio. Between the patio and a grass is a little channel filled with pebbles. In that channel is my ball. Channel is in play, but hardly ideal. About 8 inches behind my ball also in the channel is a sprinkler head. So I asked an official who happened to be on the patio whether I got relief or not. He had me set up to it and take a backswing. My club hit the sprinkler head (harder than I would have liked). He asked me to do it again (side note - WTF?) and I hit the sprinkler again. He begrudgingly gave me relief and I dropped it on the grass, pitched on the green and missed from about 8 feet. Holing it would have allowed me to break a certain score threshold I'd rather not flirt with.

Following year, I played same course, same event and I played a LOT better. I birdied 17 to go back to even par for the day. Friend of mine told me it looked like even was playing off for last spot, but birdie on 18 would get me through (this was local qualifying, so through to final qualifying). I hit my drive in the heather right, went for it from there and pulled it heather left and wound up making double to not be in the play off (which wound up being about 8 people for 2 spots). But I digress - anyway, as I walked off 18 green I walked over to the patio where the scorers were and noticed that they had painted a white line on the grass next to that Channel, so they fixed my issue from the previous year, albeit in a way that would have been much more detrimental to my score.

[Huffy]

To set the scene it is the 2023 AMCC conference championship at Indiana CC (Indiana, PA). I walk off 8 flustered after making a triple bogey with a GIR (putted off a false front; and took a couple to get back on). I get to 9 a drivable par 4, and in front of @iacas top the ball so bad it jumps back staying in the teeing area.

Since, like many of you I'm sure, I watch the USGA rules videos they put out on Instagram and YouTube, I knew rule 6.2b(6) which states if the ball does not leave the teeing area, you may retee anywhere in the teeing area with no penalty (hitting 2 of course). After embarrassing myself completely and showing & explaining the rule to my playing partners I walked off the hole with a bogey.

[Rulesman]

Ty-Webb

Why did you not get relief the from the channel filled with pebbles originally?

Edited June 12 by Rulesman

[Ty_Webb]

1 hour ago, Rulesman said:

Ty-Webb

Why did you not get relief the from the channel filled with pebbles originally?

The channel itself was an integral part of the course, so no relief. I only got relief because of the sprinkler head that was in the middle of it.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Huffy said:

To set the scene it is the 2023 AMCC conference championship at Indiana CC (Indiana, PA). I walk off 8 flustered after making a triple bogey with a GIR (putted off a false front; and took a couple to get back on). I get to 9 a drivable par 4, and in front of @iacas top the ball so bad it jumps back staying in the teeing area.

Since, like many of you I'm sure, I watch the USGA rules videos they put out on Instagram and YouTube, I knew rule 6.2b(6) which states if the ball does not leave the teeing area, you may retee anywhere in the teeing area with no penalty (hitting 2 of course). After embarrassing myself completely and showing & explaining the rule to my playing partners I walked off the hole with a bogey.

Unfortunately that was the second time y'all had to apply that rule that season. 😛 

[Rulesman]

14 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

The channel itself was an integral part of the course, so no relief. I only got relief because of the sprinkler head that was in the middle of it.

Was it so defined by a Local Rule?

[ChetlovesMer]

19 hours ago, Huffy said:

To set the scene it is the 2023 AMCC conference championship at Indiana CC (Indiana, PA). I walk off 8 flustered after making a triple bogey with a GIR (putted off a false front; and took a couple to get back on). I get to 9 a drivable par 4, and in front of @iacas top the ball so bad it jumps back staying in the teeing area.

Since, like many of you I'm sure, I watch the USGA rules videos they put out on Instagram and YouTube, I knew rule 6.2b(6) which states if the ball does not leave the teeing area, you may retee anywhere in the teeing area with no penalty (hitting 2 of course). After embarrassing myself completely and showing & explaining the rule to my playing partners I walked off the hole with a bogey.

That's a good one. 
I once got the benefit of that rule during a tournament. When I explained what I was going to do, it damned near caused an argument. Fortunately, everyone carries the internet around in their pocket these days and we were able to look it up and avoid any fisticuffs. 

All three of the guys I was playing with were sure that the rule was if you made an attempt to hit the ball, then to retee would mean hitting three no matter what.  

[Ty_Webb]

4 hours ago, Rulesman said:

Was it so defined by a Local Rule?

This was 25 years ago - I don't remember. I do know that the rules official who helped me was at the time on the R&A Rules Committee and told me that the channel and pebbles were in play, but if the sprinkler head was in the way of my swing then I could get relief. I would assume it was defined by Local Rule since it was an event run by the R&A and I'd hope that the rules committee folks know what they're doing.

[Huffy]

2 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

if you made an attempt to hit the ball, then to retee would mean hitting three no matter what.

Which is quite honestly what I thought before I saw the USGA video (thanks USGA 😉) the best way I thought about it is how the rules define the different areas of the golf course, and special provisions given to those areas.

[Ty_Webb]

On 6/12/2025 at 12:22 PM, Huffy said:

To set the scene it is the 2023 AMCC conference championship at Indiana CC (Indiana, PA). I walk off 8 flustered after making a triple bogey with a GIR (putted off a false front; and took a couple to get back on). I get to 9 a drivable par 4, and in front of @iacas top the ball so bad it jumps back staying in the teeing area.

Since, like many of you I'm sure, I watch the USGA rules videos they put out on Instagram and YouTube, I knew rule 6.2b(6) which states if the ball does not leave the teeing area, you may retee anywhere in the teeing area with no penalty (hitting 2 of course). After embarrassing myself completely and showing & explaining the rule to my playing partners I walked off the hole with a bogey.

For clarity, and my edification, if the ball leaves the teeing area, hits something (a tree perhaps) and bounces back into the teeing area, can you retee? I think you can, but I'm not 100% sure. Further, if you skewer one into trees right near the tee, then attempt to play it out of those trees and it hits one of the trees and rebounds back into the teeing area, can you retee? That one I'm not sure about at all.

 

Edit: looks like it doesn't matter how the ball got there - if it's in the teeing area then you can retee it and move it. So that's a new answer to the "when can you move the ball closer to the hole?" question.

Edited June 13 by Ty_Webb

[Huffy]

26 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

looks like it doesn't matter how the ball got there

Agreed, the way the rule reads is, "If the player’s ball in play is in the teeing area after A stroke."  It states A stroke, not the FIRST stroke on that hole. It specifies this applies to missing the ball and a drive that does not leave that teeing area but does not make a provision for any other stroke.

The rules however define the teeing area as "The area the player must play from in starting the hole they are playing." and further states that "All other teeing locations on the course (whether on the same hole or any other hole) are part of the general area." The way I read it is if your ball comes to rest on the tee box you started the hole from you can re-tee it, but not from another tee box on that hole or another hole.

An interesting way I think someone could use this rule is if they topped a drive then topped a fairway wood, and had let's say 300 in from a terrible lie, not confident they can get a fairway wood in the air. If the tee box is back on the line for an unplayable drop, they could drop in the tee box and re-tee. Super specific instance, and am not sure if the rule applies after a drop and not a stroke...

[DaveP043]

5 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Edit: looks like it doesn't matter how the ball got there - if it's in the teeing area then you can retee it and move it. So that's a new answer to the "when can you move the ball closer to the hole?" question.

 

4 hours ago, Huffy said:

Super specific instance, and am not sure if the rule applies after a drop and not a stroke...

The first bit of 6.3 says teeing area rules apply when:

The player is starting play of the hole (see Rule 6.1),

The player will play again from the teeing area under a Rule (see Rule 14.6), or

The player’s ball is in play in the teeing area after a stroke or after the player has taken relief.

So yes, if you take Unplayable Relief in the Teeing Area, you can then move it or tee it up.  Note that for Back on the Line penalty relief, for Unplayable or Penalty Area, the relief area may be any area of the course.  For free relief, you must usually end up in the same area of the course as your ball was previously, That means you can't take relief from a sprinkler head for a ball in the General Area and drop in the Teeing Area.

[ChetlovesMer]

On 6/13/2025 at 7:01 PM, DaveP043 said:

 

The first bit of 6.3 says teeing area rules apply when:

The player is starting play of the hole (see Rule 6.1),

The player will play again from the teeing area under a Rule (see Rule 14.6), or

The player’s ball is in play in the teeing area after a stroke or after the player has taken relief.

So yes, if you take Unplayable Relief in the Teeing Area, you can then move it or tee it up.  Note that for Back on the Line penalty relief, for Unplayable or Penalty Area, the relief area may be any area of the course.  For free relief, you must usually end up in the same area of the course as your ball was previously, That means you can't take relief from a sprinkler head for a ball in the General Area and drop in the Teeing Area.

@DaveP043 I love your posts. I always learn something. Nice job otta you.