Rules - How does OB end?

[Ignorant]

Is there a hard & fast rule how the OB line continues after the last stake? Does it continue parallel to the fairway or parallel to the OB line (i.e. the line formed by two last white stakes) ? Or is it dependant on the situation?

[iacas]

Is there a hard & fast rule how the OB line continues after the last stake? Does it continue parallel to the fairway or parallel to the OB line (i.e. the line formed by two last white stakes) ? Or is it dependant on the situation?

The last stake is the end of OB. It doesn't continue beyond it unless there's a local rule saying "roads are out of bounds" or something.

If a course is lazy and doesn't mark things as OB when clearly they should be, well, that's a lazy course, and if there were a tournament and I hit it in someone's yard, not in an area marked OB with stakes or noted as such in the local rules, why, I'm going to play it. Or allow any playing partners to play their balls from such a place. Without a picture or a better description, your question is going to be tough to answer (except to say that it has nothing to do with being parallel to the fairway).

[lumpuckeroo]

While I was unable to find a definative answer in the rules, the last marker is the last point of OB. A properly marked course will have the OB marker "thru the green" so there is no question as to the end of OB. You might see what you can find in the rules.

http://www.usga.org/Rules.aspx?id=7788#show=7868

[Ignorant]

The last stake is the end of OB. It doesn't continue beyond it unless there's a local rule saying "roads are out of bounds" or something.

I do not have any picture to post but I try to describe it.

Let us assume an OB on the left side of the fairway ending 50 m before the green. The last OB stake has been marked with black top to indicate end of OB. Now, a player hits his ball to the left and the ball crosses the OB line in the air before the last stake but ends to rest more or less past that particular stake, i.e. potentially closer to the green than the stake. How can one be sure if the ball is OB or not? How does the OB line extend 'outwards', parallel to the fairway or parallel to the OB line defined by the stakes? This may have a significant meaning depending how far the ball is being hit. Sometimes parallel to the fairway and parallel to the OB line is not the same thing, depending on the shape of the fairway (dogleg). I hope this made my question more clear.

[zeg]

I think the answer is that the rules don't say. The course should have an OB that surrounds the total in-bounds playing area and any OB regions should either be connected with that or completely self-contained (i.e., closed loops). This shouldn't come up on a properly staked course and would be subject to a local rule to resolve the ambiguity.

[iacas]

Picture for this discussion

I've drawn something up. It seems like you have a situation like we see with the white stakes on the left (ignoring the one with the blue circle around it), and your ball is in the yellow dot position. In this case, I'd say you're not OB.

If the white stake with the blue line around it (in my graphic) were present, the yellow ball would be OB.

Heck, the way they seem to have defined it (i.e. without the blue-stroked OB stake), you could make a case for even the green ball being in bounds. Again because lines have no real depth, and OB is an "area" whose EDGES are defined by lines.

You might want to look up the rulings for courses with internal OB. Like: http://www.usga.org/bookdecision.aspx?id=14319#33-2a/14

[cougar978]

This question came up during the state tournament my junior year of high school - I believe the course had stated that two stakes adjacent to one another signaled the termination of the OB line on a particular hole - anything hit beyond the double stake was in play and anything short of it (and subsequently beyond the boundary of the stakes behind it) was out - I think it had something to do with the boundaries of a particular homeowner's parcel of land.

That's the only time I've ever seen a double stake representing a termination of an OB line, but in that case, it made sense.

[Fourputt]

This question came up during the state tournament my junior year of high school - I believe the course had stated that two stakes adjacent to one another signaled the termination of the OB line on a particular hole - anything hit beyond the double stake was in play and anything short of it (and subsequently beyond the boundary of the stakes behind it) was out - I think it had something to do with the boundaries of a particular homeowner's parcel of land.

This is the only way I've ever seen an out of bounds margin terminated too. I've seen it a few times when a course had an internal OB between holes.