Ball resting in tree

[redgun22]

Witnessed a very odd situation in a round on Friday...

A guy that I was playing with hit his drive towards a group of sparsely branched pine trees. When we got up to the area to search, we located the ball resting on the top side of a tree branch at about shoulder height.

We assumed that his options were to:

1) Take a drop as unplayable or
2) Play it as it lay (with a baseball style swing)

BUT: with the wind that day, the branch was in constant motion. If he hit the ball off of the branch would he be in violation of Rule 14(5)... "A player shall not play while his ball is moving." How is "moving" defined? The ball was not rotating in any way, just moving up and down along with the branch.

Any insights? Given the uniqueness of the situation we all thought that it would be a pity to just take an unplayable lie... so he hit it out of the branch with a baseball swing and advanced it about 10 yards.

Just wondering if he even had a "legal" option to play it as it lay...

[Gary Hill]

The player was within his rights to play the ball as it lay.

The ball was at rest. The tree was moving.

A ball is deemed to have “moved’’ if it leaves its position and comes to rest in any other place.