Rules Question

[BallStriker]

Playing today and an interesting situation arose for my buddy....

He hit his ball about 5 feet past where the cart path split into a Y.....where his ball originally lied his front foot was on the path and had a right to relief.....after locating his nearest spot of relief, he dropped just inside another full club length and the slope made the ball roll down closer to the hole.(doing this twice)..at the spot he dropped (where it should be placed normally) his back foot was now on the "back" cart path......however, there was a spot he could have taken full relief between the paths, but chose to use the entire club length so again he did not have relief....

does he have the right to take relief if available between the paths even he could take the full club length he was afforded and then be in another "drop" spot because his back foot was on the back path..and he wanted to go back beyone the back path to get a flat lie?

[iacas]

does he have the right to take relief if available between the paths even he could take the full club length he was afforded and then be in another "drop" spot because his back foot was on the back path..and he wanted to go back beyone the back path to get a flat lie?

It's late and I don't feel like scouring the Decisions, etc. so I'm going to take a stab at this based on what I know.

There's only one "nearest point of relief." I believe he's required to take relief there. I also believe the obstruction (the cart path), even though it splits, is considered one obstruction - preventing him from taking relief from the first part of the "Y" and then taking relief again from the second part (or playing it with his feet on the other part of the "Y"). The point of nearest relief, too, is a point. It's not a semicircle comprised of "the point plus a one-club radius." I believe that if you have a point of complete relief, you take it - you don't get to say "no, this area isn't complete relief because if I drop here, 7/8ths of a clublength away, I won't get full relief from the obstruction." But again, that's off the top of my head. A picture or drawing would help - you should consider posting one on photobucket or flickr or somewhere.

[MiniMoe]

Actually, if you take relief, then you have to take full relief. The fact that his back foot is still on the cart path means he did not take full relief.... unless it is considered a different cart path. If it is a different cart path then he is entitled to relief again. If it was not a different cart path and he played the ball without taking full relief, there is a penalty.