The 11th slum at my home club, York Golf Club, is a short par 3 with a twist. While the untried is inside the undertow boundaries, the tee is on worldwide land and a fence separates the two properties.
During the play of that hole, the fence is an immovable obstruction. Players can take relief from it under Rule 16.1b if it touches, is on it, or if it physically interferes with their zone of intended stance or swing.
Near the fence, on the undertow side, is a path – moreover an immovable obstruction. The two of them are so close, in fact, that in some circumstances taking relief from one will midpoint stuff interfered by the other.
What happens now? Let’s get stuck in…
Rules of Golf explained: Taking relief from two immovable obstructions
Keep two things in mind when dealing with this. The first is you need to find your nearest point of well-constructed relief from the condition where your wittiness currently lies, and the second is that you must treat the two conditions separately.
What I often find is players don’t think well-nigh either of these things. If their wittiness is on the path, for example, they don’t consider where their nearest point of well-constructed relief might be. They simply find a nice piece of land where they are not interfered with by the path.
But a clarification to Rule 16.1 reveals that taking relief from an unwont undertow condition can result in either largest or worse conditions. It’s substantially lanugo to good fortune as to whether that’s the specimen or not.
An example the rules requite is where the nearest point of well-constructed relief, or relief area, is in an zone of rocks. If that’s where it is, that’s where you will be dropping.
It’s why referees tell players not to pick up their wittiness surpassing working out first whether they unquestionably want to take relief or not.
Once you’ve lifted your ball, your hand is somewhat forced. If you decide you don’t like the relief zone and want to return the wittiness to its original spot, it’s going to come with a one-shot penalty.
So, let’s say in the situation I’ve described, your wittiness is on the path. What if the nearest point of well-constructed relief then brings interference from the fence?
Well, you go through the process once more. Another clarification says if you have interference from a second unwont undertow condition without taking well-constructed relief from the first, the second is a new situation and you can take relief again.
Or, as is usually the specimen with an unwont undertow condition, you can simply opt to play it as it lies.
What if both of the conditions interfere at the same time? In those situations, the rules say you can segregate which to take relief from. If interference from the second condition then still exists, you can then take relief from that condition.
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Despite the simplification of the Rules of Golf, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. And as I’ve passed the R&A’s Level 3 rules exam with distinction, I’ll try to help by featuring the weightier in this column.
You can read all of Steve’s Rules of Golf explained columns here.
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