Line of Flight Relief

[natgolfer]

A situation arose today where the yardage sign for a hole, mounted on a post, interfered with my "fellow competitor's" line of flight to his target. Neither his stance nor his swing would have made contact with the sign.

He thought that he would be entitled to relief, but I said that he shouldn't get relief because of the aforementioned reason. He was where he was as a result of a rare bad shot and the post did not interfere with his stance or swing.

At the Mississippi Golf Club on holes 12 and 15 there are "bells" mounted on permanent posts, on both sides of the holes that are located near the rough/fairway line(I know-through the green.) It is quite easy for a good tee shot to end up with the post on line to the flagstick, but not close enough for the Immovable Obstruction rule to be put into effect. Does one get relief? No!

Question: Can the local committee make it a local rule that line of sight be taken from these posts? Probably yes, but it would establish a scary precedent, because a golfer could be 50 yards from the post, which is in his line, but have a bad lie, and be able to ask for and technically get relief.

At this same club, golfers, at one time, were able to get line of sight relief from small, "newly planted" trees(two club lengths in hgeight or less). I actually had a person in my group request line of sight relief from a small tree that was at least 75 yards from his ball, because he had a bad lie in the rough.

I can understand line of sight relief from a huge scoreboard erected at a tournament, but not a sign post or a small tree.

[Gary Hill]

There is absolutely no such thing as line of sight relief !!!!! Period.

Err, except on the PGA Tour and like events where they use a Local Rule for relief of sight from TEMPORARY immovable obstructions like grandstands and TV towers that will be REMOVED from the course on Monday morning.

Unless you see TV towers scattered around the course, you may as well forget you ever heard the term.

You were absolutely correct to inform the player that he was not allowed line of sight relief.

You do NOT get line of sight relief from a small tree.

The Committee was in error if they established a Local Rule granting line of sight relief from a tree. What they should have done to protect the tree was to declare the area around the newly planted tree as ground under repair and establish a drop area that did not keep the tree directly between the drop area and the hole.

You do get relief from the stakes or guy wires that are supporting a newly planted tree only if they interfer with your lie, stance, or area of swing.

The Committee is NOT allowed to designate permanent objects on the course as temporary immovable obstructions.

FYI -
This may not be directly related to the case in point but:

If the post may be moved without unreasonable effort, without unduly delaying play, without causing damage, has not been declared an integral part of the course or has not been declared as immovable, then the player would be allowed to remove the post as a movable obstruction.

A better example would be a water hazard stake.

[LBH]

If the post may be moved without unreasonable effort, without unduly delaying play, without causing damage, has not been declared an integral part of the course or has not been declared as immovable, then the player would be allowed to remove the post as a movable obstruction.

Gary, I believe one would argue, especially in a competition, was is or isn't unreasonable effort (The incident when Tiger had a large number of spectators remove a large boulder comes to mind) and what is or isn't unduly delaying play (i.e. if the group behind you is slow and there is a 15-20 minute gap, is taking 12 minutes to remove a boulder considered unduly delaying play?)...

What is the proper approach to take as a fellow competitor if somebody takes too much time or required too much effort to move a moveable obstruction?

[Gary Hill]

The Tiger-rock incident was a loose impediment.

A post is an obstruction.

No approach should be taken. A fellow-competitor is an outside agency.