‘Just tap it in’, says Happy Gilmore, but sometimes the ball is determined not to go home. Watch enough golf and you see all sorts – lip-outs, horseshoes, bizarre deflections, balls that defy the laws of gravity.
And, occasionally, this little beauty arises. I actually saw this one during a round a couple of weeks ago. My playing partner hit a putt, it fell into the hole, and bounced out of the cup and away.
Of course, we stifled some guffaws. It was frustrating, for the player, and amusing to the rest of us in equal measure. But then the question came: what do the rules say?
Is the hole over, or have you suffered an unlikely piece of misfortune? Let’s look at when a ball is holed…
When is a ball holed?
It’s defined in the rules, which shouldn’t be such a surprise given it’s the whole point of the game. That definition says a ball is considered holed when the ball is “at rest in the hole after a stroke and the entire ball is below the surface of the putting green”.
We’re failing on both counts there. And if there is still any doubt in your mind, a clarification makes it even more explicit.
“The words ‘at rest’ in the definition of holed are used to make it clear that if a ball falls into the hole and bounces out, it is not holed,” it says.
Unlucky.
But if the ball was still moving in the hole – such as if it was bouncing around – then the same clarification says if a player removes the ball, it is considered holed “despite the ball not having come to rest in the hole”.
So if you’re worried you might have a jumper on your hands, perhaps the answer is to go all Kevin Na on your ball and pick it out before it has the chance to leap out and cause some minor misery to your scorecard.
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Despite the changes to the Rules of Golf in 2019 and 2023, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. I’ll try to help by featuring the best of your queries in this column.
What do you think of this rule? Is the ball holed? Let me know by leaving a comment below, email me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or get in touch on X.
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