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This is how it's done when the rarely applied local rule permitting a provisional for a water hazard is in place. In that case, if you opt to play a provisional, if you find your first, you may play it as it lies or play the provisional. By playing a provisional, you waive your right to take a drop. (This is only supposed to be applied when it's impossible to tell whether you're in the hazard or not from the tee, and when it'd almost always be impractical to take the drop or determine the reference point for the drop, IIRC).

No to the first. Probably no to the second, but I'm not certain.

I disagree. It flies in the face of the particular logic that has been adopted. If you really wanted to carry the self-consistent logic out fully, the rules would require or strongly encourage course architects to ensure there was at least, say, 50 yards between the edge of any fairway and the boundary of the course. There's really not an intrinsic logical reason why placing a hole near to the edge of the course property should be an acceptable practice but arbitrarily designating the edge of a hole to be OB is not.

It's best done with the camera. You use a tilt-shift lens, which can shift the lens relative to the camera and adjust the focal plane of the lens not to be parallel with the film (CCD) plane. It can be done to some degree in post-processing, as well.

Interesting, though they do permit making parts of adjacent holes OB (Decision 33-2a/14). I don't have a problem with it, though it'd be annoying if abused. What I really meant, though, was that it's not always as simple as "It's the edge of our property." Sometimes there are internal areas, like maintenance yards, decorative patches, etc, that could be used for the course but have been designated as not being part of the course.

In situations like that, if you're not comfortable with distance control, forget the pin. Aim for the deepest part of the green and focus on making good, downward contact (as has been covered above), and on accelerating through the ball. Until you get a good feel for it, this may end up giving you more distance than is ideal, hence aiming for the deep part of the green. However, you're usually better off far away from the pin but on the green than you are two feet farther up the slope with the same lie on your next shot after dinking one with a babied, decelerating shot.

When someone does this, I'm always tempted to park across the line immediately next to their "precious" car. I refrain because if they drove off and left my car sitting alone like that, I'd be embarrassed if anyone thought I was obnoxious enough to park like that.

OB isn't always off the property, there are plenty of courses with internal OB for various reasons. At the end of the day, though, everything in golf---right down to the fundamental "play it as it lies" principle---is only accepted because we all agree to it.

Exactly this. There are gradations of penalty all over the course. If you play the ball accurately, you stay on the fairway and short grass. If you miss a small amount, you're "penalized" by the rough, sometimes in several grades as the shot becomes increasingly errant. If you hit a somewhat worse shot, you may end up in a bunker, or perhaps a water hazard. Finally, the worst penalty for an errant shot is OB, where you pay with stroke and distance. As was suggested above, you need to know where the OB is and play accordingly. As a practical matter, it's usually OB because it's off the property, but in some cases it's strategically placed on golf course property. You need to be aware of it, and play away from it or pay the price.

Two thoughts. First, don't think about new clubs to fix your problems, except maybe a wedge if you have a very old one---that *might* affect your ability to chip out of crappy lies, but even that's a long shot. (If you want new clubs just for their own sake, by all means go for it, but don't expect them to improve your scores.) As was said above, the weaknesses you have really can only be fixed with practice. Second, I wouldn't be worrying about moving back to the tips just because you can hit that range. While it may not feel like the distance is hurting you, it is. Except in very, very unusual situations, you are more accurate on shorter shots. Even if the tips are only 20 yards longer on a hole, that adds 20 yards to your approach, which makes you that much more likely to miss the green and need to hit a chip. If you're playing in the 90s, I don't think it's time to move back, except maybe to play the same tees as your group. I'm in the same situation as you, though a bit shorter off the tee. I find that I shoot the same scores from most tees, but I still don't go past the white (middle) tees, and often play the forward tees if my dad is playing them. Until I get down into the low 80s consistently, I'm not going to worry about needing to play longer tees.

You don't by any chance mean Oak Quarry, do you?

The staff should definitely warn you prior to the round if any aspect of the course is not up to their usual standards. I would expect any course over $100/round to be in excellent condition as the default, and at a $200 rate, you're entitled to expect immaculate. (Your discount doesn't affect this, they're billing themselves as a $200/round course.) I'd be pretty upset if I got out there and found bunkers like you describe---given the comments after your round, they're not like this on purpose. Bunker types and sand types vary from place to place, so hard ones aren't automatically junk, but they wouldn't be apologizing if they meant for them to be like that. I played on a course sort of like that once, it was like a half inch of sand over a concrete floor. You couldn't play a blast at all, you just had to chip out.

I don't think the OP's issue is with the holes not having identical handicap numbers, since that's obviously problematic, but that the same hole is not in the same relative position in the two 9s. The "obvious" way to fix it would be as the OP suggested, where the 17th and 18th handicap holes would be the same. (i.e., 1st is also 2nd, 3rd is also 4th, etc.) The strange thing is that the same hole is 13th and 18th. That means they've scrambled the ordering between the front and back 9s. I think your last sentence here is probably the reason: putting the 9th hole as the 17th handicap hole is not consistent with the suggested ordering of the handicap numbers. While I don't completely agree with the rationale for the ordering, that is what they want, so holes near the middle of the 18 would be expected to have lower numbers.

Yes, the same happened to me. There was a question about an incorrect drop procedure after hitting into a water hazard. The question was how many total penalty strokes, and I answered only considering the strokes associated with the incorrect drop. I didn't think to add the one for the drop in the first place... I wasn't surprised to have missed one, but I didn't think it'd be THAT one. One thing I find with the quiz/exam format is that you can game it a bit. Sometimes a later question will give a hint to the answer to an earlier one, or sometimes just looking carefully at the details they include gives you a hint as to the rule to apply. I think that's why it's harder on the course---just being told, e.g., "X happened intentionally ," can be a big clue. In the real world, you have to remember whether to think about clues like that. Though in the quiz I just took, they did a pretty good job of peppering in tricks, irrelevant details, etc, so they've clearly taken care not to be too artificial.

I know them quite well, in general, I'd say well above average. I got a 9/10 on the Advanced version of that quiz (I've taken many iterations of it in the past), and like turtleback, my wrong answer was something of a brain fart. However, in practice on the course, my hit rate is probably a bit low. In the "classroom" I can usually figure out whether a penalty is one or two strokes, but in a hurry or under pressure, I'm more inclined to err. Fortunately, lost ball is about the only penalty that ever comes up for me. (boy is that last one a sentence I never thought I'd write!)

This is the sometimes frustrating truth. No one ever said golf is fair, so if you find yourself in a wet or submerged bunker, that's just part of the luck that's so intrinsic to this game. Though, if the bunker really is in an unplayably bad condition, the management should probably mark it as GUR, just as they would hopefully do for any other isolated unplayable region of the course. (If it's not isolated, the course shouldn't be open!)

You can also drop in the location providing the maximum available relief (no closer to the hole, yadda yadda).

This. I've simply never seen anything on this forum that qualifies as "bullying." Rude or offensive replies, trolling, etc, are not the same as bullying. Feel free to ignore unhelpful replies. If we all did this, the signal-to-noise ratio would improve further from its already high level. Don't feed the trolls. As has been said, if someone is consistently obnoxious, just block them. If a post is abusive or out of line, flag it and it will be reviewed and removed if it is inappropriate.

You're making this too complicated! It means just what it sounds like. You need to make an honest effort to drop the ball just where it was before--that location, or your best estimate of it, is your target for the drop. It doesn't have to land on the same spot, but you have to try. If you were in a divot, you're trying to drop it to hit the divot. If you were inches off the fairway, you need to try to drop it inches off the fairway. No club length for the drop, when they grant you that they specify it. You get the universal 2-club lengths, not nearer the hole, for the roll out. Once you drop the ball legally, it is in play, so you don't get a re-drop unless it rolls too far, rolls nearer the hole than your target, or you dropped in the wrong place. The dropping procedure is, as far as I know off the top of my head, always exactly the same. The only difference from rule to rule is the location that is your target.

I don't think anyone was suggesting the match players should snottily demand that you stand aside, because their real match is happening. They should simply explain the situation and ask their non-competing partners to cooperate in the interest of fair play of the tournament. And I don't think there's much debate that a tournament round is "more meaningful" than a typical casual Sunday outing. That's not to say that your enjoying yourself is not important, just that you're less likely to be interfered with by playing out of order than they are if one of their competitors gets a free read on their putt. If you're playing with money on the line, then sure, you're playing a competition. That's a different situation, but I'd still be inclined to yield to the tournament match.

The decision luu quoted should be an incentive to replace every divot immediately after every shot. You never know when you will need to go back and drop on it. But, yes, you do have to drop at the same spot, regardless of the turf condition. If you're lucky, you'll miss, but I guess the divot is part of the penalty...

Just to add a couple of the nicer courses to my list, not super-close to Burbank but also not terribly far, there's Angeles National, which is hands down the best-groomed course I've ever played. It is decidedly not reasonably priced, but they do work pretty hard to keep it in beautiful shape, at least based on a sample size of one. That said, I didn't find it to be all that interesting a course, and it's got a lot of environmentally sensitive areas that lead to frustrating lost balls if you can't keep it in play. There's also Rustic Canyon, which is quite a bit more affordable. It's also a desert links style course with plenty of lost balls, but I thought it was a more interesting layout. Not kept up as well as Angeles National, but kept up well nonetheless. There are quite a few others if you're willing to drive up toward Santa Barbara, notably Olivas Links which is excellent and affordable, and I've heard good things about Moorpark and some of the other courses out that way. Out east, too, there's Oak Quarry and a few other nice ones. These are all probably in the $40-$70 range, depending on day and time, I guess. But your best value, IMO, is at Altadena, Eaton Canyon, and Alhambra (though that's more of a drive for you than it was for me). For a moderately high handicapper, these are well enough kept and the most affordable by a stretch. Altadena and Eaton Canyon also have nice all-grass ranges except during the rainy months, nice putting greens, and so-so chipping areas and practice bunkers.

Those are a couple options. I used to live in Pasadena and played nearly all my rounds at Altadena GC or Eaton Canyon (the second link above). They're sister courses, both 9-holes. They're rather different, Altadena is pretty wide open with some gradual but occasionally important elevation changes and is the easier and less crowded of the two. Eaton Canyon is a bit more interesting, perhaps, with a few narrow holes with lots of elevation as you go down for the first 4 and back up for the last 5. Both are under $20 for a walker (and are easily walkable), and not hard to get onto without a reservation except weekend mornings. I've not played DeBell, but I've heard it can be tricky / frustrating. If you don't mind a bit of a drive, there's the Alhambra Golf Course, which is a short, relatively easy course with some tricky holes on the back 9. It's under $30 for a walker, IIRC. There's also the Brookside courses in Pasadena. I've not played them, but they're apparently pretty good. They have a reputation for being extremely crowded and slow on weekends, and occasionally in poor condition because they park cars on them during Rose Bowl games. These are a bit more expensive, probably $40-$50. (http://www.americangolf.com/brookside-golf-club) There are also the various LA City courses (http://www.golf.lacity.org/). I've played Hansen Dam and Rancho Park, and both were very nice courses and are under $50 even on weekends if your'e walking. These courses, particularly those more central to LA, are generally very busy, I believe. Finally, there's an executive course called Scholl Canyon in Glendale. I've not played it, but it's apparently a sometimes tricky "par 3.5" sort of course.

Correct, I was referring specifically to the case described where the issue is just that the ball was in the rough.

The above answer is correct---the difference between dropping and placing is very important. In answer to your question about rough versus fairway, there is no distinction between these when choosing your drop point. The only restrictions are that you may not drop in a hazard (bunker or water hazard) and you may not drop on the putting green. Otherwise, any point within the one club length of the nearest point of relief may be selected.