Ruling inquiry

[ElWagonne]

I play at courses which are "house locked" so to speak. If you hit a ball up against a fence that borders a house, but the fence is not a part of the course, what is the proper ruling, just for my purposes. Do you get free relief, as if the fence is an immovable obstruction or do you have to take an unplayable? All answers are appreciated.

[goblue107501]

Typically, most courses that have homes will have OOB stakes between the course and the homes. Meaning if you hit it in someone's yard, you will be OOB and you would need to rehit from the original position with a stroke penalty.

If it is not marked as OOB, then the normal rules would apply. You would not get free relief, you would have to either hit the ball as it is, or take a stroke and drop for an unplayable lie.

Someone correct me if this is wrong...I don't claim to be a rules expert.

[flanagan]

A fence defining out of bounds is not an immovable obstruction, I can't imagine this fence isn't the out of bounds fence or, if it's not and on the neighbor's property, you are out of bounds before you get to the point of the fence (i.e., it's off the course). Your question is a little too general and I can't imagine the situation is the same at every course you play. If the fence marks the out of bounds line, play it as it lies or take an unplayable, I don't think you get relief.

If not marked as it should be on the course, perhaps it's in the fine print on the card or at the clubhouse, etc. Every course isn't necessarily the same and you say you have the situation at different courses, so hard to answer definitively.

[ElWagonne]

I guess I should describe a little more....the fences are a part of the neighbor's yard, but the course doesn't have any markings such as white stakes in between the course and the yard itself. This may become moot though in a while, because the course has been making efforts to define hazards better, possibly in an effort to beef up the course rating. I guess my understanding would be if the fence is a part of the course, you get relief, if not, you don't.

[David in FL]

A fence defining out of bounds is not an immovable obstruction, I can't imagine this fence isn't the out of bounds fence or, if it's not and on the neighbor's property, you are out of bounds before you get to the point of the fence (i.e., it's off the course). Your question is a little too general and I can't imagine the situation is the same at every course you play. If the fence marks the out of bounds line, play it as it lies or take an unplayable, I don't think you get relief.

Correct. Assuming the fence will defines the boundary of the course, it's deemed to be a fixed part of the course. A ball resting against it is still in-bounds because in order to be out-of-bounds, the entire ball must be out. There's no relief however and you either play it as it lies, or declare it unplayable and proceed from there.