Golf Rules Golf Rule 28 Ball Unplayable (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Rules Golf Rule 28 Ball Unplayable (Video) - by Pete Styles

So we’re in a situation here where we've got a golf ball that's well and truly buried. It's got a big fissile right in front of it and a lot of brambles and nettles all around here. Now I am ideally going to try and get this golf ball out on to the green, but by this first red flag over in this position. But looking down on that, it really isn't looking too favorable. You have to be quite brave to even get in there and try and contemplate taking that shot on. So there are times and places on the golf course where we actually deem the ball to be unplayable. So this situation or worse than this situation, we think that ball's not playable.

What are my options? Well firstly, all of your options are covered by a one-shot penalty. So it's not a free drop out of this situation. You need to play it is it lies or you take a penalty option. Now one of your penalty options would be the stroke and distance rule. Go back to where you last hit the ball from, and play it from there. So if your tee shot as landed in this situation, be going back to the tee. If you’ve just duffed the chip from ten yards away to this situation, you go back to where you duffed it from. Carry on from there, adding one shot. That's the stroke and distance option. There is an option, the next option that says you are allowed to take the ball from where it is in line with the hole and take it as far back as you like walking down there and play it from that position. But if the camera just pans around, you'll really see that isn't much of an option. There's no safe ground over there and we end up in the trees. There's no option to take the ball back there. So I have one more third option, which is the option that we're going to take in this situation where I would actually take the ball away from where it is by two club lengths, but not nearer to the hole. So two club lengths in any direction as long as it's not nearer. Now you are allowed to use your driver here. So we take out a driver, get two of the biggest club lengths we can manage. We could try two club lengths in any direction and we are actually going to drop it this way. So one club length here, one club length here and then we drop a marker down on the floor in that position. And we'd say right, that's my spot. That's where I'm going to drop the golf ball. Probably also if I can mark the ball here as well just in case there’s any issues with where was your ball sitting before you picked it up. So we take the golf ball up from an unplayable situation, two club lengths out. I'm not nearer to the hole, straight arm, drop down and play the ball from here. That ball didn't roll a long way. It didn't roll nearer to the hole. It didn't roll outside two club lengths. So I then played the golf ball from there with an addition of one stroke to my score. Now sometimes we’ve got to take unplayable, take our [Indiscernible] [0:02:47], drop the ball back in play. And if you understand the rulings, you've got stroke and distance, you've got straight in line with the hole as far back as you like or you've got dropping to the side up to two club lengths away, all under one shot penalty. 2015-07-23

So we’re in a situation here where we've got a golf ball that's well and truly buried. It's got a big fissile right in front of it and a lot of brambles and nettles all around here. Now I am ideally going to try and get this golf ball out on to the green, but by this first red flag over in this position. But looking down on that, it really isn't looking too favorable. You have to be quite brave to even get in there and try and contemplate taking that shot on. So there are times and places on the golf course where we actually deem the ball to be unplayable. So this situation or worse than this situation, we think that ball's not playable.

What are my options? Well firstly, all of your options are covered by a one-shot penalty. So it's not a free drop out of this situation. You need to play it is it lies or you take a penalty option. Now one of your penalty options would be the stroke and distance rule. Go back to where you last hit the ball from, and play it from there. So if your tee shot as landed in this situation, be going back to the tee. If you’ve just duffed the chip from ten yards away to this situation, you go back to where you duffed it from. Carry on from there, adding one shot. That's the stroke and distance option.

There is an option, the next option that says you are allowed to take the ball from where it is in line with the hole and take it as far back as you like walking down there and play it from that position. But if the camera just pans around, you'll really see that isn't much of an option. There's no safe ground over there and we end up in the trees. There's no option to take the ball back there. So I have one more third option, which is the option that we're going to take in this situation where I would actually take the ball away from where it is by two club lengths, but not nearer to the hole.

So two club lengths in any direction as long as it's not nearer. Now you are allowed to use your driver here. So we take out a driver, get two of the biggest club lengths we can manage. We could try two club lengths in any direction and we are actually going to drop it this way. So one club length here, one club length here and then we drop a marker down on the floor in that position. And we'd say right, that's my spot. That's where I'm going to drop the golf ball. Probably also if I can mark the ball here as well just in case there’s any issues with where was your ball sitting before you picked it up.

So we take the golf ball up from an unplayable situation, two club lengths out. I'm not nearer to the hole, straight arm, drop down and play the ball from here. That ball didn't roll a long way. It didn't roll nearer to the hole. It didn't roll outside two club lengths. So I then played the golf ball from there with an addition of one stroke to my score. Now sometimes we’ve got to take unplayable, take our [Indiscernible] [0:02:47], drop the ball back in play. And if you understand the rulings, you've got stroke and distance, you've got straight in line with the hole as far back as you like or you've got dropping to the side up to two club lengths away, all under one shot penalty.