2020 MGA Rules Quiz - Q18

18. A player chooses to take lateral unplayable relief for his ball in a bunker. He drops the ball. It lands

in the bunker, but it rolls and comes to rest outside the bunker within two club-lengths of and no

closer to the hole than the ball’s original location. The ball has also landed and come to rest within

one club-length of a reference point on a line going straight back from the hole through the spot of

the original ball. Additionally, the ball lies at a spot that would satisfy Rule 14.6b (Making Next

Stroke from Where Previous Stroke Made). Which of the following is true?

A. He will incur only one penalty stroke under Rule 18.1 if he plays the ball.

B. He will incur only one penalty stroke under Rule 19.2 if he plays the ball.

C. He will incur two penalty strokes if he plays the ball.

D. He will incur three penalty strokes if he plays the ball.

C

Diagram 14.6 is helpful.

Another clever question. Although I think it has a minor unintended flaw, discussed below.

My answer is D, and there are two possible ways to get there, depending on a little piece of detail that the question does not provide - whether that drop in the bunker landed within the correct relief area before moving outside the bunker. Assuming that is the case, the journey looks like this: the player proceeds under 19.2c lateral relief, with the ball dropped in the right place but the Rule requires the ball to be dropped again for coming to rest outside the bunker. This is a 14.5b(3) situation, the player is required to take relief under the same Rule and the same relief option (lateral relief) under that Rule. So hitting the ball where it lies outside the bunker would be a wrong place (14.7) that gets 2SP and the 19.2 penalty also applies (1.3c(4) last bullet point) for a total of 3SP.

The reason S&D cannot apply here is because the ball is merely fortuitously in the relief area that S&D would apply to, the ball was not dropped in a way that would legitimize that location, having been dropped in the bunker (ie in a wrong way for S&D relief).

The alternate journey assumes the ball dropped in the bunker did not land initially land in the correct relief area before moving outside the bunker, so the player is in a 14.5b(2) situation, and is required to take relief under the same rule but may use any relief option under that rule. While this would permit playing a ball from where the previous stroke was made (applying 19.2a and following the procedure in 14.6), as noted above, the ball was not dropped in a way that would legitimize that location, having been dropped in the bunker. In this world also, the same penalties apply.

I suspect failure to specify that the bunker drop landed in the correct relief area was unintended. Even the MGA would not require the sort of tortured labours above, would they?

So you added the penalty for invoking R19 as well? Fair enough, I did not as I thought that was already incurred.

#18 D Rule 19; Rule 14.7