Would a local rule be justified?

[Shilgy]

Or is it just an immovable obstruction?

 

On the second hole of my course here in Phoenix we have a well for pumping  water to the course. Good sized facility, guess would be about 50 feet square. Brick walls about 15 feet high but importantly to the golf it is just the walls, no roof. Should we have a local rule granting relief from inside the square? I would look at it as a possible injury prevention from a ball caroming off the wall or the ball harming pumping machinery.  Outside it we play it as a typical immovable obstruction needing stance or swing interference for relief. 
The pump station is not typically in play where it is located but someone will hit it in there every so often.

 

Should we have a rule granting relief? Is a local rule justified/allowable under the rules?

[Colin L]

Model Local Rule 8F-3 should help you.

[sui generis]

The Committee could make the area inside the walls a No Play Zone.

[Shilgy]

8 minutes ago, Colin L said:

Model Local Rule 8F-3 should help you.

Thank you but that is for a TIO. This is permanent. **

 

** That is thinking you meant F-23 . I do not seem to be able to find 8F-3

[Shilgy]

9 minutes ago, sui generis said:

The Committee could make the area inside the walls a No Play Zone.

Thank you, that would be a good option.

[Colin L]

4 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

Thank you but that is for a TIO. This is permanent. **

 

** That is thinking you meant F-23 . I do not seem to be able to find 8F-3

My reference wasn't precise.   It's Committee Procedures 8F-3.  Model Local Rule F3

Edited February 7, 2021 by Colin L

[Colin L]

14 minutes ago, sui generis said:

The Committee could make the area inside the walls a No Play Zone.

To do so it would have to make the area a Penalty Area or Ground Under Repair.

[sui generis]

Just now, Colin L said:

To do so it would have to make the area a Penalty Area or Ground Under Repair.

 

It's the same sleight-of-hand used to prohibit play from a flower bed. The designation of GUR is a shortcut to provide a relief procedure, I think.

 

NPZ is more restrictive than F-3. Your F-3 suggestion is a good one, too.

[rogolf]

Isn't the whole thing an immovable obstruction?  A ball in an immovable obstruction is covered by 16.1a, a "ball in or on" an immovable obstruction.

[sui generis]

2 minutes ago, rogolf said:

Isn't the whole thing an immovable obstruction?  A ball in an immovable obstruction is covered by 16.1a, a "ball in or on" an immovable obstruction.

 

I understood from the description that this was a grassy 50' square with a 15' wall on all sides. A little hard to imagine, but perhaps that is the case.

[antip]

19 minutes ago, sui generis said:

 

I understood from the description that this was a grassy 50' square with a 15' wall on all sides. A little hard to imagine, but perhaps that is the case.

The Committee can simply confirm that the entire area is an immovable obstruction, no additional local rule is required. Any ball in there or lost in there gets relief. Do these walls have a door/entrance?

 

Declaring it a NPZ(abnormal course condition) also gets relief, with the only difference that the player MUST take relief.

[Sawgrass]

1 hour ago, antip said:

The Committee can simply confirm that the entire area is an immovable obstruction, no additional local rule is required. 

I believe the area inside the walls must meet the definition of obstruction in order to be declared  an immovable obstruction.  Does it?

 

I was imagining it a grass or dirt “floor.”

 

Anyway, there’s nothing preventing it from being declared GUR, either normal or NPZ as options depending on your preference.

[antip]

24 minutes ago, Sawgrass said:

I believe the area inside the walls must meet the definition of obstruction in order to be declared  an immovable obstruction.  Does it?

 

I was imagining it a grass or dirt “floor.”

 

Anyway, there’s nothing preventing it from being declared GUR, either normal or NPZ as options depending on your preference.

I was also thinking natural stuff on the ground. I have seen examples like this before (an area surrounded by stone walls with some grass and large rock between the outer walls) all posted as a single immovable obstruction despite the existence of some surrounded grassy area. Since Jan 2019 I guess the distinction is no longer material, it all fits under the abnormal course condition umbrella. Moreover, giving it all one title is more streamlined than having a separate defined IO and GUR and then having to tie them together in one relief process if the Committee wishes to avoid dropping gaming opportunities.

[Colin L]

• 2 hours ago, antip said:

  The Committee can simply confirm that the entire area is an immovable obstruction, no additional local rule is required. Any ball in there or lost in there gets relief. Do these walls have a door/entrance?

   

   

Could you reference the rule/interpretation that sanctions doing that, please?   If it can  just be "confirmed"  that the entire area within a wall  is an obstruction, that seems  to me to be saying that it is an obstruction by definition and  the committee is simply informing players that this is the case.  Does that not  mean that an entire  garden area,  for example,  is an immovable obstruction if  it is surrounded by a stone ****, or a fence whether the Committee confirms it or not?

 

PS  The rude word filter has asterisked the word that comes naturally to me for a stone wall round a field, garden, sheep pen etc.   🙄

Edited February 8, 2021 by Colin L

[antip]

There is no Rule reference Colin, just a practice that I've seen used, presumably (I'm not sure of this) with the blessing of the State Association. One course here - which hosted a Pro Tour event - has an IO like that.

In essence, it's a short cut that produces the precise same outcome as identifying the IO(s, if the walls are separate), all the ground between/inside them as gur, and tying them together via local rule as one relief situation.  So it does nothing that cannot be delivered through more conventional means with many more words. 

Edit: additional thought:

I'm not seeing anything that prevents a Committee from declaring the entire area (walls plus enclosed dirt/grass) to be a single abnormal course condition for purposes of Rule 16.1. I see nothing that separately requires a Committee to say this part is IO and this part is GUR.                                                                                                                                                                      

Edited February 8, 2021 by antip
additional comment

[Sawgrass]

8 hours ago, antip said:

Moreover, giving it all one title is more streamlined than having a separate defined IO and GUR and then having to tie them together in one relief process if the Committee wishes to avoid dropping gaming opportunities.

I wasn’t suggesting defining just the grassy area inside the walls as GUR, but the walls too using the walls as the defining line (and thereby all within them).  
 

I still don’t think you can appropriately declare natural terrain an IO, but whatever.  It all works from a player’s perspective I suppose.

[Shilgy]

If it helps you guys, and thank you very much for this discussion, this is in Phoenix so it is a dirt and stone surface on the ground. Not grass. Some of you are likely not aware but here in the desert courses are limited to 90 acres of grass areas. 
As to the walls just picture a small 50foot square house with 15 foot high walls but no roof. There are large entry doors for servicing the pump mechanism. 
@rogolf had mentioned a few posts above 

16.1a, a "ball in or on" an immovable obstruction

 

but that was my question really. Are the four walls the obstruction or the whole enclosure ONE obstruction? Meaning if you are in the middle of this enclosure with no stance or swing interference would there be relief?

 

[Shilgy]

On 2/7/2021 at 8:35 PM, sui generis said:

 

I understood from the description that this was a grassy 50' square with a 15' wall on all sides. A little hard to imagine, but perhaps that is the case.

Correct other than it is a dirt surface. Here in the desert you will be playing shots from the dirt occasionally. 

[Colin L]

I wondered if what you describe could justifiably be called a building  as opposed to an area of ground with a wall round it but concluded that unless it originally had a roof, it can't be.  

 

If  the ground within the walls is in its natural state as you seem to be saying,  I  don't  think it can be taken to be an immovable obstruction just because of the wall and so players can't take relief without something being said to sanction it.   A surrounding wall or fence  does not change the status of the ground within it.  If it I did, many a golf course would, in its entirety, be an immovable obstruction.  

 

If  the Committee just confirms, as in Antip's reference, that the whole area is an obstruction it is in effect creating a local rule but without codifying it.  I don't see that a Committee has the authority to change the status of an area of ground to an obstruction when that area does not meet the definition of one. It is  pragmatic and I don't suppose anyone would question it but I'm a bit of a stickler for correctness and would want a local rule to keep things "proper".  The Committee has  authority to determine any area on the course to be GUR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[antip]

On 2/8/2021 at 10:23 AM, Shilgy said:

Or is it just an immovable obstruction?

 

On the second hole of my course here in Phoenix we have a well for pumping  water to the course. Good sized facility, guess would be about 50 feet square. Brick walls about 15 feet high but importantly to the golf it is just the walls, no roof. Should we have a local rule granting relief from inside the square? I would look at it as a possible injury prevention from a ball caroming off the wall or the ball harming pumping machinery.  Outside it we play it as a typical immovable obstruction needing stance or swing interference for relief. 
The pump station is not typically in play where it is located but someone will hit it in there every so often.

 

Should we have a rule granting relief? Is a local rule justified/allowable under the rules?

Can we get a fuller picture of what this creature is? So far, I'm reading square walls 50 foot by 50 foot and 15 feet high. Inside is pumping equipment / well (water source) with machinery accessing the pumps/well through large doors and a dirt/rock floor between the walls and the internal equipment/well. Have I got this right? If so, with machinery coming and going to a pump/well in the middle of this construction, I'm having considerable difficulty seeing anything that could be considered natural about this construction and everything points to it all being logically considered an immovable obstruction.

 

I fully applaud all the comments aspiring to use language as close to the definitions in the Rules as possible but I would be delighted and entertained to hear from anyone about their experience of playing a ball from inside such a construction where the Committee considered any element of the construction to be natural and therefore requiring parts of this to be declared GUR before relief is enabled from any positions within this construction.

[Colin L]

If it is as Antip  pictures  it,  I wouldn't argue.   My thoughts are based on a largely open space with a well in the middle of it,  influenced I suspect by a developed unfamiliarity with envisaging measurements in feet.  

 

  I'm left, however, with the question of how big does a walled enclosure with an obstruction inside it have to be before it ceases to be a single obstruction and becomes a wall enclosing ground that has an obstruction in it?  Do we have to resort  to the familiar "we'll know it when we see it" assessment?

 

That's all a bit academic.  However it's done, there's no doubt that players should get relief and if in terms of safety they are to be required to take it, it needs to be identifiable  as a No Play Zone in whatever way the course defines them. 

 

In the by-going, I'm intrigued why this well needs to be surrounded by a 15 foot/4.5 metre wall.   What high-jumping  Arizonian creature is being kept out ..... or in?  

 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Colin L

[Sawgrass]

4 hours ago, Colin L said:

I'm intrigued why this well needs to be surrounded by a 15 foot/4.5 metre wall.   What high-jumping  Arizonian creature is being kept out ..... or in?  

 

 

There's the truly challenging question.

[Shilgy]

6 hours ago, Sawgrass said:

There's the truly challenging question.

If I had to guess it mat be a legal issue in the state or county. ***.  I will be at the club tomorrow and take a few pictures and pace off dimensions.

 

Based on replies it seems  like the NPZ suggestion will be the winner.

 

As to what the walls keep out? Coyotes? Bobcats?  I would say teens but it is not locked. 

 

 

[antip]

12 hours ago, Colin L said:

In the by-going, I'm intrigued why this well needs to be surrounded by a 15 foot/4.5 metre wall.   What high-jumping  Arizonian creature is being kept out ..... or in?

The 58 degree?

[antip]

51 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

If I had to guess it mat be a legal issue in the state or county. ***.  I will be at the club tomorrow and take a few pictures and pace off dimensions.

 

Based on replies it seems  like the NPZ suggestion will be the winner.

 

As to what the walls keep out? Coyotes? Bobcats?  I would say teens but it is not locked. 

 

 

Agree, NPZ seems a good way to go. May also be merit in including a dropping zone unless this is a fair distance from the fairway - NPCR based relief area may result in a solid wall directly in front of the next stroke.

[sui generis]

1 hour ago, Shilgy said:

If I had to guess it mat be a legal issue in the state or county. ***.  I will be at the club tomorrow and take a few pictures and pace off dimensions.

 

Based on replies it seems  like the NPZ suggestion will be the winner.

 

As to what the walls keep out? Coyotes? Bobcats?  I would say teens but it is not locked. 

 

 

 

And, go with antip's fine suggestion of a dropping zone as an alternative relief option.

[Shilgy]

53 minutes ago, antip said:

Agree, NPZ seems a good way to go. May also be merit in including a dropping zone unless this is a fair distance from the fairway - NPCR based relief area may result in a solid wall directly in front of the next stroke.

Thank you. That is what the head pro and I have been discussing. For most players they would drop in the nearest nice place anyways so a drop zone is preferable....and safer. Don’t need folks trying to clear the wall from behind with a shot off hard pan desert floor.

[sui generis]

51 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

Thank you. That is what the head pro and I have been discussing. For most players they would drop in the nearest nice place anyways so a drop zone is preferable....and safer. Don’t need folks trying to clear the wall from behind with a shot off hard pan desert floor.

 

One way, if you were to need it, is to mark the dropping zone with a stake, say a blue or green one, and a Local Rule to allow dropping within a certain club-length radius. My club had such a dropping zone which had the blessing of the Carolinas Golf Association. The advantage of the stake is for the greenskeeper. No paint and the ability to move it around a little.

[Shilgy]

23 hours ago, sui generis said:

 

One way, if you were to need it, is to mark the dropping zone with a stake, say a blue or green one, and a Local Rule to allow dropping within a certain club-length radius. My club had such a dropping zone which had the blessing of the Carolinas Golf Association. The advantage of the stake is for the greenskeeper. No paint and the ability to move it around a little.

Thank you all. After discussing this thread with the head pro we are going with the NPZ and a blue stake for drop area.

[rogolf]

1 hour ago, Shilgy said:

Thank you all. After discussing this thread with the head pro we are going with the NPZ and a blue stake for drop area.

Just to go a little further, and for completeness - the definition of No Play Zone says that it must be part of an abnormal course condition (eg, GUR) or a penalty area.  I presume that you'll make it part of GUR for free relief, and the dropping zone will either be be an additional option to those in the Rules or  mandatory location for relief.  More decisions....

Edited February 11, 2021 by rogolf