[PHOTO: Tom Pennington]
The Rules of Golf is big on the premise that you’re supposed to play a golf course as it’s found. Rule 8 covers this in detail – it’s literally subtitled “Course Played as It Is Found”. The idea is that no matter how nice a course looks, if you find yourself in a bad lie, well, that’s part of the game.
Knowing this, you might wonder what types of tidying you can do before you play a shot. Are you allowed, for example, to repair a pitchmark that’s off the green because you want to putt from a little further out and it’s in you line on the way to the hole? Or can you get the guy with the leaf blower to walk over and blast a pile of leaves that’s between you and the green?
The short answers for those two scenarios are no and yes. Further explanation: you can’t improve your lie, stance, area of intended swing or line of play (or the relief area where you intend to drop or place). So repairing a pitchmark in your way is a violation of Rule 8.1 and comes with the general penalty (two strokes or loss of hole in matchplay). You can, however, remove loose impediments near your ball in any way you see fit (including tipping the guy with the leaf blower).
This brings us to the conundrum posed in the headline of this article. Sand from fairway and greenside bunkers often finds its way onto closely mown areas. What if some of that sand was in your way as you’re about to hit a putt from off the green? Can you go up to that sand, tap it down or brush it away, and play on? It’s considered a loose impediment, right?
Wrong. Sand is not considered a loose impediment (Definitions). That’s why either pressing it down or removing it violates Rule 8.1a(4). Your opponent was correct that you just improved your line of play by trying to prevent those sand particles from impacting your stroke.
Don’t feel bad if you weren’t sure about this. In 2012, Rory McIlroy got hit with a two-stroke penalty for brushing sand away that was on the fringe at the Abu Dhabi Championship. At the time, the 22-year-old didn’t recall the rule, and his playing partner, Luke Donald, had to notify him of the bad news.
“Just made a very stupid mental mistake on [No.]9 that cost me two strokes,” McIlroy said at the time. “There was maybe six feet of fringe going up to the green and there was so much sand in my line, I didn’t even think about it. I just went down and brushed the sand, and Luke said, ‘Don’t think you can do that.’
“And it came to me right away. One of those things. I’ll definitely not do it again. Just a mental error… It’s a bit of a weird rule. You can move a loose impediment like a divot out of your line. You can’t move sand. It’s a tricky rule.”
What also makes it tricky is that you can brush away or tap down sand if it’s on the putting green, as covered under Rule 13.1c(1). That’s where the difference lies, and where you have to be cognisant of where you are on the course to make sure you don’t make an unnecessary – and costly – mistake.
