WGANC is a USGA member and all our tournaments are governed by USGA rules. WGANC has its own fully trained Rules Committee, qualified to serve as Rules Officials for all our major tournament events. WGANC will provide rules seminars at your course - just contact your WGANC Rules Director. If you have a rules question you would like answered, please send an email and we will respond. We will also post the answer on this web site.

Rules We LOVE to break (but don't know we are doing it...)

 

Shirley Gahm, Assistant Rules Chairman

 

A Confusing Rule But One Well-Worth Understanding

 

19. Ball in Motion Deflected or Stopped

Before we learn more about Rule 19.1, it is important to understand the definition of an outside agency. In match play, an outside agency is any agency other than either the player’s or opponent’s side, any caddie of either side, any ball played by either side at the hole being played or any equipment of either side. In stroke play, an outside agency is any agency other than the competitor’s side, any caddie of the side, any ball played by the side at the hole being played or any equipment of the side.

An outside agency includes a referee, a marker, an observer and a forecaddie. Neither wind nor water is an outside agency.

Rule 19.1. By Outside Agency. If a player’s ball in motion is accidentally deflected or stopped by any outside agency, it is a rub of the green, there is no penalty and the ball must be played as it lies, except:

a. If a player’s ball in motion after a stroke other than on the putting green comes to rest in or on any moving or animate outside agency, the ball must through the green or in a hazard be dropped, or on the putting green be placed, as near as possible to the spot directly under the place where the ball came to rest in or on the outside agency, but not nearer the hole, and

b. If a player’s ball in motion after a stroke on the putting green is deflected or stopped by, or comes to rest in or on, any moving or animate outside agency, except a worm, insect or the like, the stroke is canceled. The ball must be replaced and replayed. If the ball is not immediately recoverable, another ball may be substituted.

Exception: Ball striking person attending or holding up flagstick or anything carried by him…see Rule 17-3b (The player’s ball must not strike the person attending or holding up the flagstick or anything carried by him unless flagstick is attended, removed or held up without the player’s authority (see Rule 17-2)).

FOR RULES AND INFORMATION:

Golf Handicap and Information Network Homepage USGA.ORG

Rules Quiz (1) During a 4-ball stroke play event, Sally’s second shot strikes a directional sign near the green. Her ball is deflected backwards a number of yards and now lies in a bunker. Does she have to play her ball where it lies or does she get to move it forward to where she hit the sign? Does she incur a penalty? (2) Mary hit her ball over onto another fairway where, before it came to rest, it was struck by Sally’s ball in the course of striking her own ball. Sally’s ball went 40 yards. Mary’s ball could not be found. What is the ruling? Answer to (1): It is a rub of the green and the ball must be played as it lies, without penalty. Answer to (2): Each player was an outside agency in relation to the other. Under Decision 19-1/2, Mary would have been obliged to play her ball as it lay, without penalty, if it had been found. Since it was not found, Mary must proceed under Rule 27-1, incurring a penalty of stroke and distance. Sally must play her ball as it lies, without penalty.