Torrey Pines Lateral "Water" Hazards have no water

[No Mulligans]

At the PGA Farmers Insurance Open they had what was probably more than a mile worth of lateral hazards marked with red lines that had no water in them.  Isn't this in conflict with the USGA rules?

[iacas]

Water hazards don't need to have water in them.

8 minutes ago, No Mulligans said:

At the PGA Farmers Insurance Open they had what was probably more than a mile worth of lateral hazards marked with red lines that had no water in them.  Isn't this in conflict with the USGA rules?

What part of the definition? You did note the bold below, right?

Quote

A "water hazard" is any sea, lake, pond, river, ditch, surface drainage ditch or other open water course (whether or not containing water) and anything of a similar nature on the course. All ground and water within the margin of a water hazard are part of the water hazard.

This looks like like a water hazard to me:

Also, note, that they're supposed to put the mark at the top of the hill, basically:

http://www.barryrhodes.com/2011/01/defining-water-hazard-margins.html

https://www.randa.org/Guidance-on-Running-a-Competition/Rules/4-Marking-the-Course/SubRules/3-Water-Hazards

So, please cite a specific example?

[No Mulligans]

I just thought this was a bit of a stretch, 3,000 feet to the water... not sure what the definition of "open water course", but this is bone dry land except when we get a rare down pour. I guess this fits the definition of "open water course" as any canyon in San Diego would, I didn't know.  

Edited January 29, 2018 by No Mulligans

[Fourputt]

The barrancas at Torrey are watercourses even though they only contain water during and immediately after a heavy rain.

[Golfingdad]

I agree that they fit the definition, but they haven't always been marked as such.  In 2001, Phil Mickelson won in a playoff over Frank Lickliter with a double bogey on the 17th hole during their playoff (17 is the bottom right corner of @No Mulligans photo above).

They both hit the ball in the junk left of the fairway and hit provisionals.  Phil abandoned his search after not finding his ball anywhere "good" because he his provisional was in a perfect spot.  Unfortunately, a good samaritan marshal kept looking and found Phil's ball ... in an unplayable spot so he had to go re-tee again, and hit another bad one.  He got lucky, and scrambled for double while Lickliter 3-putter for triple.

I guess my point is that while it seems that it's ok for them to mark these areas as hazards, they haven't always done that.