Determining Out of Bounds

[Fourputt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

If that is their intent, then they need to add a couple more stakes to better define it.  It's not that difficult.  If they don't do that, then the the area beyond a straight line between the stakes is out of bounds.

I've seen some blatant lazy jobs by courses. I've seen some instances were there is 50 yard gaps between stakes and there is a good 10-15 yards of area that are in play, but technically considered OB. To me I wonder if that was their actual intent to make it so a good chunk of playable area is considered OB, or if they are just lazy and the golfer is penalized for poor course management.

I guess in this case it is screw the golfer here since you can't be certain what the intent is or not.

It's more a case for the casual golfer to decide if he is going to play strictly by the rules, or if your group decides to invoke a "local rule" of their own devising in the interest of playability.  Obviously for competition, OB is OB.

[saevel25]

It's more a case for the casual golfer to decide if he is going to play strictly by the rules, or if your group decides to invoke a "local rule" of their own devising in the interest of playability.  Obviously for competition, OB is OB.

True. I think a tournament would have it set up more specifically to make sure there is less situations like this.

[Golfingdad]

I've seen some blatant lazy jobs by courses. I've seen some instances were there is 50 yard gaps between stakes and there is a good 10-15 yards of area that are in play, but technically considered OB. To me I wonder if that was their actual intent to make it so a good chunk of playable area is considered OB, or if they are just lazy and the golfer is penalized for poor course management.

I guess in this case it is screw the golfer here since you can't be certain what the intent is or not.

Yeah, I almost had the same situation at a course I play occasionally ...

The rough runs right to the cart path and then on the other side of the cart path is a brush covered, ascending hill to the homes.  They used to only have stakes spaced too far apart.  I was on the hill in line with the first small bunker and was nearly "in bounds" per the stake location, even though it's pretty clear the intent is that the cart path is the boundary.  They've since rectified the issue by painting a white line along the outside edge of the cart path, but before that it could get messy. :)

[DaveP043]

It's more a case for the casual golfer to decide if he is going to play strictly by the rules, or if your group decides to invoke a "local rule" of their own devising in the interest of playability.  Obviously for competition, OB is OB.

True. I think a tournament would have it set up more specifically to make sure there is less situations like this.

I agree with both of you.  In a tournament I live with whatever the markings are, but I expect them to be done properly.  We're lucky, our head pro is conscientious, and our course is usually well-marked for tournaments.  For casual play, if the paint has worn off or a stake has been knocked down or removed, we'll usually go with our best judgement as to the intent of the markings.  It helps that I play at a private club, usually with the same group of 20 or so players, so we have a pretty good collective memory as to how things should be marked.

[Fourputt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

It's more a case for the casual golfer to decide if he is going to play strictly by the rules, or if your group decides to invoke a "local rule" of their own devising in the interest of playability.  Obviously for competition, OB is OB.

Quote:

Originally Posted by saevel25

True. I think a tournament would have it set up more specifically to make sure there is less situations like this.

I agree with both of you.  In a tournament I live with whatever the markings are, but I expect them to be done properly.  We're lucky, our head pro is conscientious, and our course is usually well-marked for tournaments.  For casual play, if the paint has worn off or a stake has been knocked down or removed, we'll usually go with our best judgement as to the intent of the markings.  It helps that I play at a private club, usually with the same group of 20 or so players, so we have a pretty good collective memory as to how things should be marked.

I too was fortunate to play more than 90% of my golf at a well run public course for some 35 years.  I was in a tournament Men's Club that was not directly associated with the course, but we played there and worked out our tournament schedule with them.  We were self managed, and one member of the board of directors was a rules chairman, part of whose job was to work with the different tournament committees to ensure that the course was set up right.  One member was USGA trained in course set up, and he would remark the course at least monthly all during the season (the course bought the paint, and he did the work for free), usually a day or two before a tournament, and check things like hazard and OB stakes to make sure that they were replaced from some of the peculiar places that casual golfers seem to have a penchant for putting them.  Notable areas of damage in the playing areas were marked as GUR, all hazards were lined as well as staked.  It really made for clean play during our competitions and for the 3 or 4 high school teams which often played there.  We also held PAT's for aspiring pros, and there was a fairly serious women's league which filled the tee sheet on Thursday mornings.

All in all it's a pleasure to play on a course that is properly set up and marked.

[Braivo]

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd post my question here as it relates to this.

Last night I pulled my tee shot on #1 to the blue dot below (with the arrow indicating the direction of the green. #1 and #9 run adjacent to each other, with on course OB marked with 3 stakes, indicated below with white dots and straight lines connecting them. The purpose of the OB is to keep the players on 9 from playing near the bunker on 1 as it is not visible from the 1st tee due to a hill.

My question is: was my tee shot on #1 OB? It was short of being between the stakes, there were no other stakes to indicate the OB continuing further down toward the #1 tee. I played this as in bounds. Was that correct?

BTW: Those thin lines are high tension transmission wires running through #1, local rule states that if it hits the wire it is a re-hit.

[Rulesman]

1) Is there a local rule which specifies which hole the OB operates on?

eg Only when playing hole 9 but not hole 1

or Only when playing hole 1 but not hol 9

or simply 'white stakes define OB'.

2) A common convention is that if a line of stakes comes to an end, another stake is planted perpendicular to the direction of play to delimit the OB area.

I assume such stakes are not present but guess that is th intention.

So I would suggest your ball is not OB.

I would also suggest it might have been better to start a new thread. Multiple questions can get messy.

[Lihu]

My question is: was my tee shot on #1 OB? It was short of being between the stakes, there were no other stakes to indicate the OB continuing further down toward the #1 tee. I played this as in bounds. Was that correct?

Not OB.

My home town has a course that has OB stakes for the very same reasons. The local rule is if your ball is short of the stakes it's not OB even if you need to take a stance past the stakes.

[Braivo]

1) Is there a local rule which specifies which hole the OB operates on?

eg Only when playing hole 9 but not hole 1

or Only when playing hole 1 but not hol 9

or simply 'white stakes define OB'.

2) A common convention is that if a line of stakes comes to an end, another stake is planted perpendicular to the direction of play to delimit the OB area.

I assume such stakes are not present but guess that is th intention.

So I would suggest your ball is not OB.

The local rules simply state "Out of bounds defined by white stakes."

The 3 stakes I labeled are the only three out there, no other stakes to indicate the end of OB, etc.

So do I assume then that a OB is perpendicular to the line connecting the stakes like my crude drawing below? In other words, I could be playing from the 9 fairway (nearer the water) and still be considered in bounds?

[ColinL]

I've seen some blatant lazy jobs by courses. I've seen some instances were there is 50 yard gaps between stakes and there is a good 10-15 yards of area that are in play, but technically considered OB. To me I wonder if that was their actual intent to make it so a good chunk of playable area is considered OB, or if they are just lazy and the golfer is penalized for poor course management.

I guess in this case it is screw the golfer here since you can't be certain what the intent is or not.

How can you have an area that is in play but "technically considered" OB?   I can't grasp that!

[Golfingdad]

How can you have an area that is in play but "technically considered" OB?   I can't grasp that!

He means to say "should be in play" but technically OB.  Like you have something that makes it clear SHOULD be the course boundary but the stakes are so few and far between and there is no white line that you're forced to call a ball OB that you know isn't meant to be.

My brothers CC has homes that back up to some holes and they don't have fences delineating their backyards.  However, by how the grass is mowed (and sometimes the type) you can tell where the actual course boundary falls.  However, if they don't have enough white stakes or paint a white line, you could be still in the course but "technically OB."

Likewise, the opposite could be true - but I'll be damned if I'm taking a divot out of that guys backyard, because I don't know him.  He could be obsessive about his lawn and he could own a gun.  Who knows? ;)

[Rulesman]

So do I assume then that a OB is perpendicular to the line connecting the stakes like my crude drawing below? In other words, I could be playing from the 9 fairway (nearer the water) and still be considered in bounds?

I would have said yes but it makes a nonsense of the course.

The same problem arises when playing 9 and hitting onto 1.

A whole swathe of both fairways between the extended red lines is OOB (depending on which hole is being played) and the rest is not !!!

[Fourputt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rulesman

1) Is there a local rule which specifies which hole the OB operates on?

eg Only when playing hole 9 but not hole 1

or Only when playing hole 1 but not hol 9

or simply 'white stakes define OB'.

2) A common convention is that if a line of stakes comes to an end, another stake is planted perpendicular to the direction of play to delimit the OB area.

I assume such stakes are not present but guess that is th intention.

So I would suggest your ball is not OB.

The local rules simply state "Out of bounds defined by white stakes."

The 3 stakes I labeled are the only three out there, no other stakes to indicate the end of OB, etc.

So do I assume then that a OB is perpendicular to the line connecting the stakes like my crude drawing below? In other words, I could be playing from the 9 fairway (nearer the water) and still be considered in bounds?

What you have is a poorly marked course, and that being the case, your guess is probably better than ours.  If I was to guess, I'd say that since the intent is to stop players on #9 from being in that area, then it shouldn't be in effect on #1.  But that is simply applying logic to the question.  I don't know how the course would call it.

What they need is to plant a row of trees to the left of the tees on #9 - then in just a few years they would effectively block 99% of shots headed in that direction.  This is what my course did between 9 and 18 to prevent play on the 9th fairway from 18, and as soon as the trees grew up , the OB stakes were removed.

However, even while the stakes were in place, they were placed properly the entire length of the hole where playing the wrong fairway might be a factor, with a double stake at each end to define the limits.  The OB was only in play from the 18th hole.

[RickK]

Going to ask this question here,

Lets say you have this scenario. You have a hole that bends hard to the left. The tree line has a larger radius. The white stakes are spaced such that if you draw a straight line between the two stakes the rough is in OB.

Should the area between the white line and the cyan line be considered OB when the intent of the course was to make the tree area considered OB? It just seems a bit strange to me that some courses can paint a white line that clearly defines OB. Yet some courses are  more lazy and just put in stakes, which clearly create a situation were part of the course not intended to be OB is OB.

It was my understanding that OB is considered a straight line between white stakes.

I used to play golf at a club that had one particular hole that had OB to the right and behind the green that was even more curved that your diagram.  It was almost a 1/2 circle. During tournaments, the club would paint a white line that curved (as it should) between the various white stakes that were present.  But, once that paint was no longer visible, I saw more arguments over whether a ball was OB or not...well let's just say it was not pleasant.

[Rulesman]

The OB margin is straight line between the course side edges of the stakes. See the Definition.

The reason white lines are not widely used is cost. In particular man hours. They wash or grow out frequently.

[RickK]

The OB margin is straight line between the course side edges of the stakes. See the Definition.

The reason white lines are not widely used is cost. In particular man hours. They wash or grow out frequently.

And, the reason they do not put adequate white stakes to cover the situation I mentioned and the one in the pic/diagram....cost.

Seeing the Definition/understanding it does not help when the course is not willing to incur the cost to properly mark the course.

You are left with situations where a ball is deemed to be OB when in actuality it is still on the property that the golf course considers part of the course.  Just poorly marked.

[saevel25]

The OB margin is straight line between the course side edges of the stakes. See the Definition.

The reason white lines are not widely used is cost. In particular man hours. They wash or grow out frequently.

I understand that rule. A lot of times I'll just play what the course looks like. So if a white stake is missing, I'll go by intent. If OB is marked by White stakes along a tree line and there is a segment that curves. You know the OB is the tree, brush area. It's obvious. To me it's pretty stupid to penalize a golfer for laziness of the course. Especially when the ball is clearly playable on the course.

[MyrtleBeachGolf]

And, the reason they do not put adequate white stakes to cover the situation I mentioned and the one in the pic/diagram.... cost .   Seeing the Definition/understanding it does not help when the course is not willing to incur the cost to properly mark the course.   You are left with situations where a ball is deemed to be OB when in actuality it is still on the property that the golf course considers part of the course.  Just poorly marked.

Cost?? What can a handful of 1"X1" wooden stakes that are 2' in length cost? I'm gonna guess $1 a piece.