Interesting Situation

[LobWedge]

During the course of my Rules studies, I came up with a question that I can't answer...

A and B are playing a match. At the first tee, A hits his tee shot from outside the teeing area. B sees this and cancels A's stroke, requiring A to replay from inside the teeing area. A returns to his bag to select another club to play his stroke, and subsequently discovers that he has 15 clubs in his bag.

Is A in breach of Rule 4-4 for starting the round with more than 14 clubs, or does the cancellation of the stroke by B allow A to remove the excess club from his bag without penalty?

[LobWedge]

Or, in Equity (Rule 1-4) is the hole halved?

[AAA]

Even though the stroke has subsequently been cancelled, A started his round as soon as he made the stroke.
The stroke was then cancelled but not the penalty.

[tyorke2]

So this would be a singel loss of hole penalty?

[AAA]

No. The hole should be played out and the result of the hole would stand. The score would the be adjusted by reducing A's score by one hole.
So if B won it he would be 2 up after 1
If was halved, B would be one up
If A won it they would be all square.

[spackler]

So it's possible to win a match 10&9?

[AAA]

The margin could be even greater. But I'll let someone else go through the rigmarole.

[BC MIST]

So it's possible to win a match 10&9?

It's actually possible to win a match 15 & 13.

And to further confuse, the largest winning margin could be 20 & 8.

[mgedit]

OK Lyle ... I'll bite. I thought the penalty would be loss of hole period, so that the most player B could be up after one hole would be one. Would the same ruling apply if player A simply conceeded hole 1 after being informed of the teeing ground error? Then removed the 15th club before teeing off on hole 2? Are you saying that you can effectively lose the hole twice or apparently three times as in the 15 and 13 example? Guess I need some further explanation. Cheers, Mike

[BC MIST]

OK Lyle ... I'll bite. I thought the penalty would be loss of hole period, so that the most player B could be up after one hole would be one. Would the same ruling apply if player A simply conceeded hole 1 after being informed of the teeing ground error? Then removed the 15th club before teeing off on hole 2? Are you saying that you can effectively lose the hole twice or apparently three times as in the 15 and 13 example? Guess I need some further explanation. Cheers, Mike

Match play IS interesting. For some rules infractions, there are loss of hole penalties. If you play from a wrong place, play a wrong ball, break off a branch of a tree to improve the area of your intended swing, you lose the hole. On the other hand, there are times when the state of the match is adjusted by holes, when other rules are broken.

Let's say that you are 3 up and are playing the 5th hole. You discover during this hole that you are carrying 15 clubs. At the end of this hole you would have 2 holes deducted from where the match stands. (See penalty statement for 4-4, match play). You win the 5th hole, now 4 up, but you have two holes deducted because of the excess clubs. Now you are 2 up.

There are other rules where holes are deducted, rather than holes being lost. Using two caddies at one time, having a non conforming club in your bag that you have not played with, adding "foreign material" to your driver face to reduce spin, using a power cart when not permitted, using a different make of ball if the "one ball" condition is in effect, and so on.

So if you are 5 down after 5 holes, and you have 2 holes deducted for each of the first 5 offenses listed above, if you happen to be guilty of them all, then you will be 15 down with 13 holes to play. Similarly, if you lost the first 10 holes and before the results were officially announced or posted, it is discovered that you broke all of the above, deduct 10 holes for 5 offenses and you lose 20 and 8. Hope this helps.

[mgedit]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Cheers, Mike