For those of you that work the San
Francisco City Championship, you will probably be incredibly disappointed to
hear that I had never been to Lincoln Park until this past weekend. The legend of the SF City as a breeding
ground for incredibly unique Rules situations has grown and grown to the point
where a good chunk of questions that are used on the NCGA exam come from
incidents during that tournament. Well,
Saturday I had the opportunity to finally play the golf course and find out
what all the hullabaloo was all about.
Lincoln Park is truly an experience
in golf “in the city.” The holes are
very close together and it is a place for the average golfer or the occasional
golfer to go and enjoy a round. What
that means is that every hole is a veritable war zone, with shouts of “Fore!”
coming from every direction and you’re never really sure whether you’re in the
line of fire or not. That said, I can
say my experience was a truly positive one and I recommend to anyone who has
not played Lincoln to give it a shot. It
may not be in the best condition, but some of the views on the course are truly
unmatched.
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| View from the Hill of the 7th fairway to the City |
Of course, my experience at Lincoln
Park would not have been complete without a true Rules incident, very similar
to the kind that occurs regularly during the SF City.
On the 13th hole, the one
par-five on the course, the tee shot is through a “chute” of sorts and over a
hill making the landing area blind for a scratch golfer like myself. (The
players I was with claimed to have never seen anyone hit the ball over the
hill). Sure enough, I hit a solid drive,
down the right side and over the hill.
We had waited a bit of extra time just in case the group in front of us
was still in range. When I arrived at
where my ball should have been, a group from the 1st hole had three
players hitting from right around the area of my ball. And sure enough, my ball was nowhere to be
found. I searched for a couple minutes and then asked one of the players from
the group on #1 if he had seen a Nike and he replied that he had seen my ball
rolling in the fairway right next to the group in front of us. So I confirmed, you definitely saw a ball
rolling in the fairway and it went right next to the group in front of us? Could they have picked it up? He answered yes.
For a weekend round, that was good
enough for me to proceed under Rule 18-1.
I had virtual certainty that the group in front had picked up and taken
my ball from the fairway, so I was entitled to replace a ball without penalty. Even with the assistance of the random golfer
on the other hole, the original spot was no determinable so I had to operate
under Rule 20-3c to get a ball back in play.
We determined as near as possible to where we believed the original laid
and I dropped a ball at that spot. Of
course, Rules nerd that I am, even during this casual weekend round of golf,
when the ball rolled closer to the hole than that spot on the drop, I
re-dropped. And when it did it again, I
placed the ball where it first struck the course on the re-drop. Rule 20-2c at its finest.
I played my ball onto the green and
when I walked up the group in front was still on the 14th tee. I walked over and asked if they had seen a
Nike golf ball in the fairway and first they answered no, until I pointed to
the Nike golf ball sitting in their cup holder.
I picked it up and sure enough it was mine, marked with “Go Dawgs!” on
the side and all. Glad I ran into that other group or I would've ended up back at the tee...