Building a stance in a bunker

[phillyk]

I was watching todays round at Colonial, when Jon Rahm was in a bunker.  He went to his ball, built a stance, but backed off because a spectator was talking or who knows.  But, he did back off after having addressed the ball and built a stance.  After the altercation, he went back and finished.  Now, I thought I remember the rules saying that once you've built a stance at the ball that you can't back off and do it over again, because it would be considered testing the sand.  I don't remember if a penalty was applied or not because I'm at work and didn't see the outcome of it.  But should there be a penalty? I tried looking in the rules book, rule 13-3 and 13-4 but those and the decisions weren't very clear to me.  @iacas @Rulesman

Edited May 26, 2017 by phillyk

[bkuehn1952]

31 minutes ago, phillyk said:

...built a stance...

I think you mean took a stance.  One is not allowed to build a stance outside or inside of a hazard or bunker.

As to fairly taking a stance in a bunker, as long as he did not attempt to "fix" his original effort, he should be good.  My impression is that officials take a fairly lenient approach to "fairly taking a stance" in a bunker as long as one doesn't push sand around to provide a platform on which to stand.  A women in the Women's US Open was penalized a few years ago for too much earth moving but she actually scraped sand uphill to give herself a better stance on a sloped face..