The 2014 tournament season is
officially underway for me with the Peg Barnard Invitational at Stanford. Last year was an incredible year where we
witnessed NCAA history when Mariah Stackhouse shot an opening nine 26 en route
to a final round 61 and an individual victory.
So far through one round, this year has not been quite as eventful.
Only one remotely notable situation
occurred and it leads to what the topic of discussion will be for today: drop zones.
A misunderstanding of a local Rule
led to a couple players being told their only option for relief from an obstruction was a
drop zone that had been provided as an additional option. Fortunately, I don’t believe either player
was significantly disadvantaged but it raised the issue of how to use drop
zones.
Most of us are familiar with drop
zones for water hazards, but drop zones can be used for many reasons. The text in the Rules of Golf Appendix I-B
reads, “If the Committee considers that it is not feasible or practicable to
proceed in accordance with a Rule providing relief, it may establish dropping
zones in which balls may or must be dropped when taking relief. Generally, such dropping zones should be
provided as an additional option to those available under the Rule itself,
rather than being mandatory.” At
Stanford, we have two kinds of dropping zones. There are four drop zones
provided as additional options for relief under Rule 26-1 (Water Hazards), and
there are two situations where drop zones are used as additional options for
relief under Rule 24-2 (Immovable Obstructions).
The drop zones for relief under Rule
24-2 are in place because determining the nearest point of relief in these
situations is can potentially be excessively difficult. In both cases, in order to not go closer to
the hole, the nearest point of relief may be a significant distance from where
the ball lies. So on hole 7, two drop
zones have been installed and the player may use the nearer of the two, and on
hole 8 one drop zone has been installed as an additional option.
The reason I’ve made these an
additional option rather than mandatory is because there are potential cases
where a player could not only determine the nearest point of relief quickly,
but that point would be a better option than the drop zone. When a better option is possible, it would be
unwise to take away that option by making the drop zone mandatory. Typically, we see mandatory drop zones used
with TIO’s (temporary immovable obstructions).
This is usually to protect the TIO itself (i.e., TV towers with cables
or the camera itself).
It is also interesting to note that
drop zones do not have to be white-painted circles. We are most familiar with this form because
it is easy and common. But a drop zone
can be established in many shapes and ways.
This year for the Peg Barnard, because the water hazard drop zones are
on the forward teeing areas where the membership has expressed dismay at the
white-painted circles in the past, we have defined the dropping zones using
blue tee-markers, and the drop zone is actually the size and shape of a teeing
ground (a rectangle two club-lengths in depth defined by the outside edges of
the tee-markers). If you implement this
method, it is important to note how the drop zone is defined on your notice to
competitors and it may be useful to remind players that they may not tee the
ball when using those drop zones.
Some other interesting Rules
regarding drop zones:
- The ball may roll closer to the hole when dropped in a drop zone.
- The ball does not have to stay within the drop zone so long as it does not roll more than two club-lengths from where it first strikes the course.
- The player does not have to stand within the drop zone when dropping.
For the
complete text regarding the use of drop zones, see Appendix I-B-8 in the Rules
of Golf or the Decisions on the Rules of Golf.
For scores and info on the Peg Barnard go to golfstat.com
For scores and info on the Peg Barnard go to golfstat.com
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