Trap totally filled with water, where do you drop?

[johnclayton1982]

I played a round this past weekend and hit a situation i didn't know the rule for.  I shot a great round, so i'm hoping I did it right.  Hole #3, a short par 4 with a large fairway bunker up the right side, a canal to the right with a cart path in between, and fairway to the left to OB.  Hit a less than steller 3W off the tee and landed (with a splash) in the fairway bunker about 180 yards to the right side.  The bunker (due to a huge rainstorm friday night) was completely filled with standing water - it was right up to the lip, like a lake.  My understanding is that you can drop out of standing water when its not supposed to be there (and you can't see into the bunker from the tee, so it was tough to see it was wet).  The right side of the bunker has a strip of fairway about 2 feet wide, then cart path, then rough about 2 feet wide, then a shallow canal / creek.  Given how much water was in the bunker, dropping to the right was impossible because anywhere there either the cart path or the water in the bunker would interfere with the shot.  To the left, while not closer to the hole, is level fairway on a nice line to the flag.

I picked up out of the trap filled with water and dropped in the fairway to the left, close the edge of the bunker (a clublength would have been still in the water) - about three lengths of my driver from ball to legit drop area, which as you can probably imagine drastically improved my shot - I hit a green in regulation with the 6 iron and then got par.  Did I do this right?  If not, what is the right play?  It seemed wrong to get such a huge advantage being able to drop in the fairway from a trap, but then again, the trap was filled with water to the lips on all sides.

Whats the play here?

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

Whats the play here?

If the trap is filled with water, meaning you have to drop out of the trap, you need to add a penalty stroke.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

If the trap is filled with water, meaning you have to drop out of the trap, you need to add a penalty stroke.

Yep.  Unfortunately this is right.

[Stretch]

Yup.

Your choices are either:

-- Drop the ball without penalty at the point in the bunker, not nearer the hole, where the water is shallowest.

-- Drop behind the bunker with a one-stroke penalty

If certain bunkers on a course are very prone to flooding, the local rules committee can declare those to be GUR when it rains, giving you a free drop. But if they haven't done that, you're stuck.

[goblue107501]

Yup.

Your choices are either:

-- Drop the ball without penalty at the point in the bunker, not nearer the hole, where the water is shallowest.

-- Drop behind the bunker with a one-stroke penalty

If certain bunkers on a course are very prone to flooding, the local rules committee can declare those to be GUR when it rains, giving you a free drop. But if they haven't done that, you're stuck.

This would have been my answer. One of my local courses was having a bunker drainage issue and they had a local rule in place that if any water was in a bunker, you could treat it as GUR until they were able to fix them.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

...I picked up out of the trap filled with water and dropped in the fairway to the left...

In addition to the penalty stroke you should've added as others have stated, you also played the ball from a wrong place. When proceeding in this way, Rule 25-1 states:

"...t he player may drop the ball outside the bunker keeping the point where the ball lay directly between the hole and where the ball is dropped..."

I.e., it doesn't sound like dropping to the left of the bunker was the correct spot.

Edit: Oops, didn't notice that Stretch beat me to the punch.

[johnclayton1982]

Thats unfortunate, and doesn't seem fair considering there was no way to tell the trap was filled with water from the tee box.  Oh well.

I probably would have had to do it regardless because for some reason I dropped out to the left of the bunker on approximately the same line instead of behind.  I never thought to drop behind the bunker completely.

My record-low 85 gets replaced with an 86, which I've done before.  Guess I'll keep chasing the 85.

Thanks for the responses guys.  Too bad.

[johnclayton1982]

So, since drop in wrong place, is that DQ?  Another stroke?

Any round in the 80s is great for me, so I'm hoping I don't have to totally throw out the round handicap-wise.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

So, since drop in wrong place, is that DQ?  Another stroke?

Any round in the 80s is great for me, so I'm hoping I don't have to totally throw out the round handicap-wise.

2 stroke penalty in stroke play. You wouldn't throw out the round, just adjust the score accordingly.  Not sure if you'd just add 2 strokes total for the single "playing from the wrong place" infraction, or if you also need to add a third for pulling it out of the bunker.

[mdl]

The rules are the rules, but this seems an unfair ruling.  If this is your home course and the bunkers tend to pretty easily fill with water after big rain storms, I'd ask the management about declaring a local rule where a completely water filled bunker is GUR.

I might even declare that my own local rule if it happens regularly!  I actually tend to hit 6i-PW pretty well out of fairway bunkers, and I'd be pissed to have to take a penalty stroke when I know a pretty good percentage of the time I could still get the ball on the green in 2.

I know a lot of posters here will rather violently condemn this, but a course I play pretty regularly is a nice layout with well taken care of greens (for a muni), but they take shit care of their fairways.  Literally at least half the fairways have TONS of space in the typical landing areas right in the middle of the "fairway" that are totally devoid of grass, just super hard dirt, almost like hitting off concrete.  I suck it up and hit out of a terrible lie if it's in the area that's supposed to be rough, but if it's supposed to be fairway I consider it GUR and take a free drop in the nearest fairway portion that actually has grass that's not closer to the hole.  Obviously this is less of an advantage than getting to take a free drop outside of a fairway bunker, so that's more questionable in terms of HC and whatnot.

[Ignorant]

Originally Posted by sacm3bill

2 stroke penalty in stroke play. You wouldn't throw out the round, just adjust the score accordingly.  Not sure if you'd just add 2 strokes total for the single "playing from the wrong place" infraction, or if you also need to add a third for pulling it out of the bunker.

Unfortunately it is 3 strokes, 1 for coming out of the bunker and 2 for playing from a wrong place.

[Ignorant]

Originally Posted by mdl

The rules are the rules, but this seems an unfair ruling.  If this is your home course and the bunkers tend to pretty easily fill with water after big rain storms, I'd ask the management about declaring a local rule where a completely water filled bunker is GUR.

This is an issue where the local management should be much more alert and keep a close eye on those bunkers that tend to have problems with casual water. Unfortunately it is not allowed to make such a Local Rule that automatically makes any bunker filled with water GUR but all bunkers need to be specifically defined in the Local Rule (see Dec. 33-8/27).

Originally Posted by mdl

I might even declare that my own local rule if it happens regularly!  I actually tend to hit 6i-PW pretty well out of fairway bunkers, and I'd be pissed to have to take a penalty stroke when I know a pretty good percentage of the time I could still get the ball on the green in 2.

Not trying to minimize this problem but aren't bunkers in general something players should avoid getting into in the first place...?

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by Ignorant

Unfortunately it is 3 strokes, 1 for coming out of the bunker and 2 for playing from a wrong place.

Not that I don't believe you, just curious if you have a rule or decision that supports that. My rationale for not begin sure was that is seems playing out of the bunker is playing from the wrong place, and there is precedence in other rulings for only being penalized once when a single act breaks more than one rule.

Edit:

Hmm, actually in this case playing out of the bunker itself is not playing from the wrong place - since the bunker is filled with water, that's allowed (with the penalty stroke of course). So, I think it's clear you're right and there would be 2 different penalties.

What if though the bunker was *not* filled with water and someone pulled their ball out and dropped it as the OP did?  Would that be a single act of playing in the wrong place, with a single 2 stroke penalty? Or would it be that penalty plus a stroke for causing the ball to move (in the act of picking it up and placing it somewhere else)? (I would think the latter...)

[ghalfaire]

Just curious here as I didn't see it mentioned but I think OP had the option of declaring the ball unplayable and returning to the tee under stroke and distance penalty also.  I don't know if that would have been a better option but it could have been.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by sacm3bill

Not that I don't believe you, just curious if you have a rule or decision that supports that. My rationale for not begin sure was that is seems playing out of the bunker is playing from the wrong place, and there is precedence in other rulings for only being penalized once when a single act breaks more than one rule.

Edit:

Hmm, actually in this case playing out of the bunker itself is not playing from the wrong place - since the bunker is filled with water, that's allowed (with the penalty stroke of course). So, I think it's clear you're right and there would be 2 different penalties.

What if though the bunker was *not* filled with water and someone pulled their ball out and dropped it as the OP did?  Would that be a single act of playing in the wrong place, with a single 2 stroke penalty? Or would it be that penalty plus a stroke for causing the ball to move (in the act of picking it up and placing it somewhere else)? (I would think the latter...)

It's a one stroke penalty for dropping outside of the bunker - if you leave the bunker this one stroke is inescapable.  If you do so and don't follow the correct procedure for such a drop as described in Rule 25-1b, then you incur an additional 2 strokes for playing from a wrong place.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by ghalfaire

Just curious here as I didn't see it mentioned but I think OP had the option of declaring the ball unplayable and returning to the tee under stroke and distance penalty also.  I don't know if that would have been a better option but it could have been.

Certainly. A ball can be declared unplayable anywhere except in a water hazard, and these three options are always available: a) Re-hit the shot from the original spot, b) Drop within 2 club lengths no closer to hole, or c) Drop as far back as you want on a line back from the hole . Only difference when the ball is in a bunker is you have to drop the ball in the bunker when choosing b) or c). See Rule 28.

[Ignorant]

That would depend on where the ball was before the player lifted it.

If there was casual water in the bunker and that water interfered with players stance, lie or intended swing AND the player wanted to get a relief from that water, then result would be the same as before, 1+2 penalties.

If there was NO casual water OR there was casual water but that water did not interfere with players lie etc. then result would most likely be DQ as coming out of a bunker normally is a serious breach. When correcting this serious breach the player would get 2 penalties for breach of R18 but no additional penalty for getting out of the bunker.

Complicated, huh? But fun ;-)

[johnclayton1982]

Yikes.  So my 85 is actually an 88?

Thanks guys!  ;)