Sometimes I get odd questions. Sometimes I get tricky questions. And other times I get a question that’s a universal truth for every golfer that’s ever played the game.
Like this latest email offering: “You have put your ball in the rough, but the branches of a nearby bush make it impossible to play your shot without repositioning the branches with your back or legs. Penalty or not?”
Whether you’re Tiger Woods or a brand-new beginner, you’ve had this situation. Can you move branches in golf? Can you wade in with all arms flailing? Is an unplayable your only option? I can feel all eyes on me…
Can you move branches in golf? What do the rules say?
Take what I’m about to tell you and apply to it any situation where you’re hampered. Be it bush, trees, or if you’re in waist high rough.
You need to consider whether what you are doing is improving the conditions affecting the stroke. Yes, it’s our old friend Rule 8.
To recap, there are restrictions to what you are allowed to do to improve the lie of your ball, the area of intended stance and swing, your line of play and the relief area where you’ll drop or place a ball.
You’ll know there are a whole list of things you’re not allowed to do – removing dew, frost or water or sand or loose soil in the general area are often things that catch players out.
But as there is a yin, there is also a yang, and there is a similar list of actions you are allowed to take in preparing for a stroke and you’ll get no penalty “even if doing so improves the conditions affecting the stroke”.
Number six on the index is particularly relevant in this situation. You can “fairly take a stance by taking reasonable actions to the get to the ball and take a stance”.
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You are not, though, entitled to your normal stance or swing and you “must use the least intrusive course of action to deal with the particular situation”.
“Fairly taking a stance” feels like a broad term and one you’d imagine would be open to interpretation out in club competition land.
If you cast your eyes over the clarifications, you’ll find some examples of what is fair and what is forbidden.
You are allowed to back “into a branch or a boundary object when that is the only way to take a stance for the selected stroke, even if this moves the branch or boundary object out of the way or causes it to bend or break”.
Hurray! You can also bend a branch with your hands “to get under a tree to play a ball when that is the only way to get under the tree to take a stance”.
Notice the use of the words “only way”. That’s really the key. If you can do it in a less intrusive way, and don’t, that’s when you’re going to come to grief as this second clarification reveals.
Such as if you start shifting or breaking branches to get them out of the way of your backswing or if you bend a branch when you didn’t need to.
Or, and this is my personal favourite, “hooking one branch on another or braiding two weeds to keep them away from the stance or swing”. I mean, who does that?
Not you obviously, for if you transgress in this fashion the general penalty (two shots or loss of hole in match play) is coming your way unless you’re able to restore the original conditions before taking your shot.
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Got a question for our expert?
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 make of this can you move branches in golf rule? Let me you what you think, and send me your own rules questions, by emailing me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or by leaving us a comment on X.
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