"Interesting" Penalty In Recent LPGA Tourney

Cut-and-paste from other forum!

Good learning for me......it may be good for you too. ,

Here's an interesting one that happened Thursday at Kingsmill. At the start of the rain delay, Dewi Claire Schreefel marked her ball on the green and left the course. When she returned to the green 2 hours later, she placed the ball in front of her marker and backed away to study the putt. She did not remove the marker. The ball moved slightly, so she lifted it and placed it back in front of the marker. She then lifted the marker and played the putt. She was subsequently given a 2 stroke penalty -- one stroke for improperly lifting a ball in play and another stroke for playing from the wrong location.

The ruling is that once the ball is placed into position on the green it is in play even if it is marked. If the ball moves on its own, where it comes to rest is its new in play position and you can't pick it up and move it back. That would have never occurred to me. I would have handled it the same way she did by moving the ball back in front of the maker.

Wow.. This is really new to me!

Thanks for sharing.

wow.....the next time it rained and I have to come back.....I better remember this rule


Else Techno mite penalize me

It seems to me the crux was that she did not remove the marker after she first placed the ball on the green when play re-started.

Had she removed the marker, and the ball moved slightly, she would then have to re-mark (at the new location) before she lifted, and then replaced before putting, thereby avoiding the penalties. Am I right?

The penalty for the improperly lifting is because the ball moved while the marker was still in original position and she lifted ball without moving the marker. Had she moved the marker to new location, would she have incurred the penalty?

Correct me if I'm wrong, recently the rules was changed such that there is no penalty stroke if the ball moved on its own before the player address the ball.

Therefore if she had remarked the ball at its new position, there would not be any penalty stroke.

Good stuff to share. Golf rules are prbay the most complicating and controversial sports rules.

Wait. What other forum?