Using the bag - not allowed?

[billybaroo]

Playing this past weekend I pulled a tee shot left of the green...right into the base of the only *&#ing thorn bush on the course!      Anyway, thinking back to the shot, I had a very hard time getting to a point I could get a club on the ball due to the thorns.  I *should* have taken an unplayable lie (is that a drop 2 clublengths away or back along the line of flight?) but instead stupidly slashed and barely advanced it.  Just to confirm, I would not have been able to use my bag to bend the thorn bush back enough to get a swing on the ball correct?

[thewitt]

You can only move living things in the process of "Taking a fair stance."  You may not move things out of the way and hold them back with anything or anyone...

-t

[2iron280]

What happens if you call a buddy over to the thorn bush to commiserate with, "accidentally" hit him on the back of the head with your three iron, thus dropping him on the thorn bush unconscious which "happens" to hold the aforesaid branches of thorn bush back, therefore enabling you to take a full swing unimpeded at the ball? 

Is that allowed?

[Dr.Green]

What happens if you call a buddy over to the thorn bush to commiserate with, "accidentally" hit him on the back of the head with your three iron, thus dropping him on the thorn bush unconscious which "happens" to hold the aforesaid branches of thorn bush back, therefore enabling you to take a full swing unimpeded at the ball? 

Is that allowed?

Is he your partner or your opponent? ....may make a difference 

[XATHANASI]

What happens if you call a buddy over to the thorn bush to commiserate with, "accidentally" hit him on the back of the head with your three iron, thus dropping him on the thorn bush unconscious which "happens" to hold the aforesaid branches of thorn bush back, therefore enabling you to take a full swing unimpeded at the ball? 

Is that allowed?

Now I'm really happy your season is over, pal!   

[DaveT319]

Tim's correct, you can't use anyone or anything to hold the bush out of the way, other than yourself. Case in point, I was playing at a local course with a buddy of mine. His ball ended up under a tree/bush (it was like a tree with the long branches, but very low to the ground - no idea what kind it was). As he was trying to take his stance, he was complaining that the bush was getting in the way of his backswing, but he went ahead and took the shot - turned out poorly, as one might expect. I pointed out to him that he could have come into the branches from the other direction, therefore bending them to the follow-thru side of his swing and giving him a clear backswing and downswing. He tried it out and put the ball on the green.

Just remember it's all about how you get to your ball. You can take get into the bush/tree any way you want, using your body to move the branches, as long as you don't break anything in taking your stance.

Dave

[billybaroo]

I didn't think I could use the bag...just checking.  Now, what would the ruling be if Tiger did it though?


As for trying to come into the brush from a different angle...those thorns were big and nasty!  Short of wearing motorcycle leathers there is no way I could have gotten to that ball and kept all my blood inside me. 

[longdownunder]

Tim's correct, you can't use anyone or anything to hold the bush out of the way, other than yourself. Case in point, I was playing at a local course with a buddy of mine. His ball ended up under a tree/bush (it was like a tree with the long branches, but very low to the ground - no idea what kind it was). As he was trying to take his stance, he was complaining that the bush was getting in the way of his backswing, but he went ahead and took the shot - turned out poorly, as one might expect. I pointed out to him that he could have come into the branches from the other direction, therefore bending them to the follow-thru side of his swing and giving him a clear backswing and downswing. He tried it out and put the ball on the green.

Just remember it's all about how you get to your ball. You can take get into the bush/tree any way you want, using your body to move the branches, as long as you don't break anything in taking your stance.

Dave

Dave, I might be wrong, but I think you are wrong.
Its 10.30 pm here so I'm not going looking tonight but I think you still have to take your stance fairly without breaking or BENDING stuff out of the way.

It would therefore make it illegal to back into the shot thus bending the tree/ branches out of the way.

If I'm wrong I'll admit it, but let me do some research.

[longdownunder]

Sorry decided to go looking.

Were both right, and wrong.

http://www.randa.org/index.cfm?action=rules.rulessub.decisionsappv3

I suppose I have always taken the opinion that nothing should be moved unless there is absolutely no doubt it can be done within the rules and without a referee on sight its hard to decided what is or isn't within the rules. Its one of those real grey areas unfortunately. If your using your backside to reverse into a tree purely to create an area to get a swing then I dont see how it can be deemed "fair".

My 2 cents.


M

[danqb08]

I think there are a lot of grey areas in golf in which you can do something a little unfair, but still be deemed legal. I think it's a good thing to take advantage of some rules, it can improve your score as long as you dont BREAK a rule it's all good.

 a lil story of mine.... I hit into a lateral hazard (dense trees) right of the green on my second shot on a par 5. I had only one shot out of there, and it was back towards the way i just came from, and i wouldn't have been able to even reach the green on my 4th shot (AND that's even if i got out of the lateral in the first place). I surveyed the situation and used the cart path that ran right by the lateral as an advantage to actually take a drop outside of the lateral by the cartpath. Take relief from the cartpath(on the other side of the cartpath to further my distance from the hazard.) , and had a clear shot to the green, hit a flop shot and recorded a 5

[Wolfman]

This sounds very dodgy - although just possible.

1. Since when are 'dense trees' a lateral hazard? (may be possible for 'local rule').

2. Cart path would have had to be within 2 club lengths of the 'hazard' to allow you to drop onto it.

3. Ball would have had to roll/bounce further from hazard (but within 2 (more) club lengths). Otherwise the required 'Nearest Point of Relief' (including stance) would have been back towards the 'hazard' (slightly simply for a lefty in this case).   

My thoughts are that you broke at least 1 rule, possibly 3 or more by doing what you did.

Rules aren't actually there 'to take advantage of'. They are actually there to make a game 'fair' (h'mm!) to everone (that's OK then). There will, however, be times when a ruling does give a player an advantage (relief from animal scrapings allowing an opponent to drop int semi-rough rather than being in sh*te being the one that springs to my mind - lost the hole rather than won it!) and I have seen a couple of advantageous 'drop onto cart path' incidents. 

Ross