2020 MGA Golf Quiz

The annual Metropolitan Golf Association Golf Quiz is now online: https://www.mgagolf.org/content/2020-mga-rules-golf-quiz

Warning, it's purpose is to make you feel bad about yourself if you believe you have a reasonable understanding of the Rules of Golf!

Answers published in a few weeks . . .

I feel bad already... and have not opened the quiz yet....

I got through Question 4 then got overwhelmed.

Forget it, I was already confused...

Thanks for posting.

I'll go with

1D

2B

Let me know if I'm correct and I'll continue the exam.

I have my doubts on both of your answers but I may be wrong. Just keep on and bang your head against the wall just like the rest of us...

I had 1D, but for 2 I got A because the ball was acted on by an outside force..

3 was B...I did some sort of counting and came up with 6

4 was A...Penalty stroke on the first one, for hitting outside of the main area, then a drop for 2 strokes total. 3rd stroke is his drive to the green, then 2-putt for a total of 5.

For 1 my thinking was that he didn't say "provisional " and the first ball was found >3 minutes from start of search. Therefore player had to return to tee which he did not. Only answer is DQ.

For 2, original ball was in play. After second shot net result was ball went OB. I don't care about pine cones or misses. The swing caused a series of events that caused the ball to go OB.

I needed a lie down after Q1.

Q1. 18.3b/2 states that the phrase "I'm going to play another just in case" is acceptable. The wording in the question is "I'll hit another just in case". Sufficiently the same or sufficiently different? I'm guessing MGA believes it is sufficiently the same, otherwise all that complex stuff that follows is just thrown in the bin.

Q2. "Half of the ball hovers over the white line on the course side, half hovers over the out of bounds side." Clearly designed to confuse, which is where these quizzes cross into the ridiculous from time to time. I can draw two different diagrams that (sort of) meet these wacky words, one shows the ball is in bounds and one shows it OOB, but my guess is the in bounds is the more likely.

Take heart Mr B! The MGA themselves got some wrong last time.

I wondered about that. My last learnings was that you had to say "provisional". It's good if they've loosened the pedanticness but I wasn't aware of it. If that's the case, I'm thinking 8. 3 off the tee. 1 penalty for moving the provisional. Then 1 on the green and 3 putts. Since the first ball was found after 3 minutes, no penalty for cleaning it. It's a lost ball. If any part of the ball is in bounds, the ball is in bounds.

On Q1, my call is 9 (answer B). In brief, when player lifted the original it was outside search time so the player was substituting a ball under 6.3 so it became ball in play, substituting also for the provisional (which was the only ball the Rules permit to substitute for the original in this scenario). It was then played from a wrong place to the fairway (not a serious breach) but was still ball in play and player needed to continue the hole with that ball. Lifting the provisional was not a penalty because the subbed ball was BIP by that point. Total counting strokes: 2 from tee, one into fairway, one to green and 2 putts. Penalties are S&D 1 stroke; 6.3+14.7 which get discounted to 2 strokes penalty, so a total of 9. No penalty from playing the provisional from the fairway and also finishing with that ball when the player did not know how to proceed.

'"Half of the ball hovers over the white line on the course side, half hovers over the out of bounds side."'

To me that sounds as if all of the ball is hovering over the white line. Thus it all depends on the width of the line. If the line is wider than the diameter of a ball that ball is OB.

Stupid question.

EDIT: This is the idiotic feature of this quiz. You need to look at the answer options in order to interpret the question and not the other way round. As there is no option for that ball to be OB in the beginning it must have been in bounds.

I hate this quiz...

Q1 is by far the most complex I've played with so far.

I got 10 (answer C). I see your point about the substituted ball, but my take was that he played a wrong ball (I'm pretty sure that's how it would have been under the old rules). What makes this a wrongly substituted ball in this instance as opposed to a wrong ball? I don't think the player was trying to substitute another ball. If you treat it as a wrong ball, then this:

Tee shot is 1

Ball is lost since they didn't find it within 3 minutes of his "side" starting to look for it

Provisional is ball in play - 3 off the tee

Plays a wrong ball from the rough, general penalty, which I think is still 2 strokes

Picks up his actual ball in play - 1 more

Replaces it and hits it on the green - 1

3 putts

All adds up to 10 shots.

3 is ridiculous. If there's no issue with playing the dropped ball, then she hit it in the water, shanked it into the water, penalty drop, hit it in the bunker, hit it in the water, penalty drop, on the green and one putt. That's 8. 8 isn't one of the options. I would think there is an issue with dropping a ball and then deciding to play the original (if your drop goes into a bad lie, then you might choose to play with more information than you should have). So let's suppose that (and I'm guessing here) once the ball is dropped then it's the ball in play. Then the ball in the hazard is a wrong ball and all the strokes played with that one don't count beyond the 2 stroke penalty. Then she hit it in the water, penalty drop, wrong ball penalty, hit it on the green and one putt. That's 6, which is B. Or there could be a penalty for the discarded drop and/or for not dropping the ball again after she hit it in the water out of the bunker. I'm going with B on the balance of things. Ugh.

Yes. I don't bother now. For some years they got at least one wrong each year.

As to your first contention, from 6.3b(2):(2) Substituted Ball Becomes Ball in Play. When a player substitutes another ball as the ball in play (see Rule 14.4):The original ball is no longer in play, even if it is at rest on the course.This is true even if the player: substituted another ball for the original ball when not allowed by the Rules (whether or not the player realized that he or she was another ball), or, or placed the  ball (1) in a , (2) in a wrong way or (3) by using a procedure that does not apply.

Without announcement and without marking the ball, the player lifts, cleans, and identifies this ball as his original.

He plays plays the first ball, and then the second, all the way through...after lifting, cleaning, and replacing the first one. That's where I got hung up on the player getting a DQ.

I check out this quiz every year. Need to remind myself why I became a Course Rater instead of a Rules Official.

But of course you'll never encounter these situations when you are actually officiating

I would not be so sure. I once got entangled with a situation I had to think through quite a few times before I (think I) got it right and it was very much like some of these quiz questions with the crucial difference of being able to ask questions from the players.

I agree that taking a quiz is much different from actually officiating. The most significant difference, for me, is that seeing things is less mistake-prone than reading things and "watching" what you think you read in your mind. But, that's the deal. A different kind of puzzle.

Thought it was interesting, but gives me a headache even trying to figure out one answer, lol.

Having said that, I think it's great a link to the quiz is posted, as always.

Do we need a separate thread for every single question? No.

Quiz easy to find, you want to discuss a question, discuss in the thread. Imagine the reaction to one of the inevitable slow play threads - a thread for every hole of the guy's round? Certain rules person would be begging every page to have each of them closed (so would I, lol). No reason to clutter up this sub-forum like each question is some banana that needs peeled back.

From previous experience in handling the quiz with other sites, if you don't have a thread for each question it soon becomes utter chaos.

In fact a goodly number get an agreed (not necessarily correct) answer fairly quickly.

Pretty sure I got question 26 right.

Hasn't been that way on here in the past - now we have a laundry list of every question taking up the whole first page. I enjoy thinking over the quiz and discussions of the rules, but a mindless list of every question is silly, IMO, but I'll complain no more about it.

Plenty of folks out there wanting to get the next slow play rant and "am I wrong hitting when there is a group 110 yards in front of me" question online. ;-) They see nothing but rules in the rules forum, well I don't know.