Why play a ball in a water hazard?

[tigerwoo14]

Hi. Thanks for taking trouble to reply. I am trying to understand the reason for some of the rules. If the water hazard has no water one is not allowed to drop a ball in the hazard and play. But if one plays the original ball in the hazard and goes out of bounds dropping a ball in the hazard is allowed.

The reason why I wanted to play in the hazard with a penalty drop is that it has a better lie then that out of the hazard (It appears unbelievable but true). I guess from the answer I get I must drop outside the hazard and play?

Why is there a rule that in water hazard one cannot declare a ball unplayable?

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by tigerwoo14

Hi. Thanks for taking trouble to reply. I am trying to understand the reason for some of the rules. If the water hazard has no water one is not allowed to drop a ball in the hazard and play. But if one plays the original ball in the hazard and goes out of bounds dropping a ball in the hazard is allowed.

The reason why I wanted to play in the hazard with a penalty drop is that it has a better lie then that out of the hazard (It appears unbelievable but true). I guess from the answer I get I must drop outside the hazard and play?

Why is there a rule that in water hazard one cannot declare a ball unplayable?

Because the ball in the hazard is already covered under Rule 26, and if you allow the player a choice of which rule to apply, then you have a potential conflict in procedure, and you might even gain an advantage over another player in a similar situation.  The rules focus strongly on "equity", meaning that like situations are treated in the same manner every time.  What you want could give the player the opportunity to bypass that fundamental equity.  Thus, when your ball is unplayable in a water hazard, Rule 26 is in force.  When the ball is unplayable through the green, then Rule 28 applies.  There are a number of rules which apply differently depending on what part of the course the ball lies on.

As I said earlier, the base theory is that  under the original definition of a water hazard, there would have been no safe place to drop anyway (and 99% of the time that still holds true if the hazard is marked correctly), so the rule simply holds to that traditional meaning.  In the early days of the game there was no such thing as an unplayable lie.  You weren't even allowed to move loose impediments.  Just about the only time you could touch your ball is if it was in a water hazard, and it wasn't even called a water hazard then.  The original rule read:

" If your Ball comes among watter, or any wattery filth, you are at liberty to take out your Ball & bringing it behind the hazard and Teeing it, you may play it with any Club and allow your Adversary a Stroke for so getting out your Ball."

Of course you also can no longer tee your ball when taking relief.

[zeg]

In addition to the excellent reasoning above, I think part of the reason you aren't granted the option to drop in the hazard is that relief is generally granted with the intent of protecting you from unplayable or very nearly unplayable situations. Beyond that, a simple poor lie is not something one is entitled to avoid. If you're in a hazard, you are given a set of options that are adequate to ensure that you do not have to play an impossible shot from the bottom of a pond. Quite simply, no consideration is given to the quality of the point of relief other than that it must relieve you of the unreasonable interference.

Wanting to take less than full relief from the condition can be a sign that you're using the rules in a way they weren't intended to be used. For example, when taking relief from a cart path, nearly every golfer would opt for full relief if all the lies were equivalent. If you find yourself wanting to take less than full relief by standing with one foot on the path, you're really not trying to obtain relief from the path so much as trying to pick the best of the nearby lies. That's not something the rules encourage.

Note: I'm using relief, unplayable, etc, as informal terms above. In some cases the "relief" may involve penalty strokes, etc, but the idea is that, e.g., you get out of a hazard for one stroke. You don't get the best possible upgrade of your lie, you get relief from the hazard . If you didn't want to play from the relief options, you shouldn't have hit it there in the first place. :-)

[UNDERGROUND GW]

If its playable go for it! Unless there are snakes, piranha, or crocs! hahhhhh

Matt