Stones in Bunkers - A Story

[iacas]

So I heard this story told to me today…

A college coach, I'll call him Jim, told me the story of his first conference championship win. He won it over the Close Competitor team (CC), who had won the previous several conference championships. They were playing in a threesome with a third irrelevant team.

The teams in Jim's conference had played a tournament three days prior where stones in bunkers were movable obstructions and could be removed.

In the second and final round, when Jim's team trailed CC by a few strokes, three players in the group hit into a bunker. Jim's player hit out. The other team's player hit out. The CC player said "I'm gonna move this stone." Jim's player and the other two looked at each other but said nothing. The player moved the stone, hit out, and went to the next tee and teed off.

Jim said the player should be DQed because he teed off on the next hole and didn't correct his mistake (?). The CC coach argued that all three boys should be DQed for waiving a rule of golf (??).

In the end the CC and Jim's team tied, and because they use the fifth score as a tiebreaker, and the guy who hit from a bunker was DQed (?)… so Jim's team won.

---

? - This isn't a DQ penalty. Why they thought it was, I don't know.

?? - The players probably didn't waive a rule, but they should have stopped the guy if they knew that stones were not movable obstructions for this tournament. It's the right thing to do.

CC would have won the tournament if the fifth player's score had counted… even with penalty strokes added.

There are very few things in golf that result in DQ. Playing the wrong ball and then teeing off is about the only one that really comes up in stroke play college events. Occasionally signing for the lower score one does too.

Know the rules. They help you about as often as they hurt you.

[bkuehn1952]

Some story.  At times I think that many of the Local Rules that seem to always be in use in the USA in all but the highest levels of competition (i.e. range finders, stones in bunker, relief for plugged balls through the green ...) should be embraced by the USGA and made a part of the Rules.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, bkuehn1952 said:

Some story.  At times I think that many of the Local Rules that seem to always be in use in the USA in all but the highest levels of competition (i.e. range finders, stones in bunker, relief for plugged balls through the green ...) should be embraced by the USGA and made a part of the Rules.

The USGA/R&A disagree on the latter two that you listed, so their compromise is to make them Local Rules.

Not really the point of this story, but as a brief aside it's fine.

[Hardspoon]

It is crazy to me that a conference championship could be decided by something like that.  It's even crazier that NO ONE on the CC team knew the rules well enough to raise the issue.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Know the rules. They help you about as often as they hurt you.

In this case, it was kind of a "zero-sum" thing...but, point taken.  You need to add this to the Tournament Prep section in the 2nd Edition of LSW!

 

[newtogolf]

Is it possible the fifth player was disqualified for signing a incorrect score card (if he didn't reflect the penalty for removing the stones out of the bunker)?

[Rulesman]

Sounds more likely

[iacas]

On 10/14/2016 at 7:52 AM, newtogolf said:

Is it possible the fifth player was disqualified for signing a incorrect score card (if he didn't reflect the penalty for removing the stones out of the bunker)?

No, I asked the coach… he said the discussion took place while the players were still playing the round.

He was insistent that because he'd teed off on the next hole, he was DQed… and so I just changed the subject, as it would have been weird to continue to correct him on something that, handled properly, would have resulted in his team not winning.

It stuns me that nobody had a Rules book available to look up the rule. It's not exactly hard to find. Or that they didn't know that it wasn't a DQ-able offense. Or ten other things…

[Hardspoon]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

It stuns me that nobody had a Rules book available to look up the rule. It's not exactly hard to find.

Or a smart phone...

[iacas]

17 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Or a smart phone...

Yeah, but it was about a decade ago.

[Natural Patrick]

45 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yeah, but it was about a decade ago.

A decade ago, Is Jim still a coach?

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, Natural Patrick said:

A decade ago, Is Jim still a coach?

No. He won several championships after that, and then retired (from coaching, not from everything).

[Buckeyebowman]

On 10/13/2016 at 8:13 PM, bkuehn1952 said:

Some story.  At times I think that many of the Local Rules that seem to always be in use in the USA in all but the highest levels of competition (i.e. range finders, stones in bunker, relief for plugged balls through the green ...) should be embraced by the USGA and made a part of the Rules.

 

On 10/13/2016 at 8:15 PM, iacas said:

The USGA/R&A disagree on the latter two that you listed, so their compromise is to make them Local Rules.

Not really the point of this story, but as a brief aside it's fine.

While I can somewhat agree with bkuehn on his point, I notice that you mentioned in your OP that the team had played in a "previous" match where loose stones could be removed from bunkers. That previous match has nothing to do with the current match. What were the rules for the current match? This sounds like Dustin Johnson at Whistling Straits all over again!

Didn't bother to check the local rules? You're screwed! And rightly so!