Do You Think the Pros Ever...

[colin007]

...fix spike marks near the hole under the guise of fixing pitch marks?  It seems to me they fix a lot of blemishes around the hole that would be much more likely the result of spike marks than ball marks...

[iacas]

...fix spike marks near the hole under the guise of fixing pitch marks?  It seems to me they fix a lot of blemishes around the hole that would be much more likely the result of spike marks than ball marks...

Of course. It's kind of an unwritten rule that anything that isn't an obvious spike mark is a ball mark.

Because everyone on the PGA Tour applies the same slightly loose interpretation of "is this a ball mark?" the enforcement of this rule is "fair."

[colin007]

do you know of any instances where players are called out for this?  i mean, some of these tap-downs i see on tv appear to be pretty obvious spike marks, but nobody says anything...

[Golfingdad]

Because everyone on the PGA Tour applies the same slightly loose interpretation of "is this a ball mark?" the enforcement of this rule is "fair."

But if one of them gets "caught" by a TV viewer, you're cool with that, right?

[iacas]

But if one of them gets "caught" by a TV viewer, you're cool with that, right?

Yep.

[MEfree]

Of course. It's kind of an unwritten rule that anything that isn't an obvious spike mark is a ball mark.

Because everyone on the PGA Tour applies the same slightly loose interpretation of "is this a ball mark?" the enforcement of this rule is "fair."

That's along the lines of what I thought also.

Do you think there are any other unwritten rules on tour?  Not exactly a rules violation, but it seems like they quickly mark their ball when it is in a competitors way, but are pretty slow to mark when it may act as a back stop.  i.e. when chipping around the green.

[iacas]

Do you think there are any other unwritten rules on tour?  Not exactly a rules violation, but it seems like they quickly mark their ball when it is in a competitors way, but are pretty slow to mark when it may act as a back stop.  i.e. when chipping around the green.

Yup. That's another.