When can you call a ball unplayable?
Subject: Rules question
Say you have a 3 foot putt downhill -- you attempt the putt and the ball rolls past the hole and 60 feet off the green -- can you replace the ball in its original spot with a 1 stroke penalty
How do you rule on this one? Is 1 or 2 below correct? Or, is there another option?
1. Are you nuts, a putt is a putt and you play it as it lies.
2. Pick it up, why be stuck with an impossible lie, you already have a read, play it again with a one stroke penalty.3. Other...
And the answer is....
The correct answer is 2. Read below for a full explanation.
You can replay the ball under rule 28-A the Ball Unplayable Rule
A player may call his ball unplayable at any place on the course except when the ball is in a water hazard. The player is the sole judge as to whether his ball is unplayable.
If the player deems his ball to be unplayable, she must, under penalty of one stroke:
(a) Play a ball as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played or
(b) Drop a ball behind the point where the ball lay, keeping that point directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind that point the ball may be dropped; or
(c) Drop a ball within two club-lengths of the spot where the ball lay, but not nearer the hole.
Penalty for Breach of Rule: Match play — Loss of hole; Stroke play — Two strokes.