If you’re of a certain vintage, you might remember Bernhard Langer scaling a tree to play a famous shot on the 17th at Fulford in a European Tour event in 1981.
The image of the young German chopping out onto the green from the branches became so synonymous with the Yorkshire club it became part of its identity – adorning the club’s scorecard and framing a large part of the locker room.
It’s a symbol of devil-may-care golf, a hero taking on gravity and coming out on top.
But it’s not for me. I’ve had a ball stuck in a tree on several occasions, and I can’t say I’ve ever looked skywards and thought about challenging my inner Edmund Hillary.
If the ball is up there and it’s mine, it’s not staying there. And that leads to this week’s column question: ‘Can I deliberately knock my ball out of a tree?’
So what do you think? Can I shake it down, or do I need to think about getting a set of stepladders? Let’s consider the rules for a golf ball stuck in a tree…
Can I deliberately knock my golf ball out of a tree?
This must be a common enough scenario, because an entire clarification in the Official Guide to the Rules of Golf is dedicated to it.
It’s always quite calming when you come across one of these, and this one, ‘Procedure when Player’s Ball is Dislodged from Tree’, is pretty detailed.
Rule 9.4 usually penalises a player who causes their ball to move, but the clarification says if they do not intend to play the ball as it lies, but are trying to identify it, or to “retrieve it to use another Rule,” then there will be no penalty.
There are a couple of examples given, such as when a player goes up the tree to try and find out whether the ball is theirs and accidentally dislodges it.
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In this case, the ball was “accidentally moved in taking reasonable actions to identify it” so there is no penalty. But they either must replace the ball – good luck with that – or use a relief rule.
In our situation, we’ve decided not to play it as it lies and we’re going to take unplayable ball relief. We can shake the tree, the ball can fall and if it’s identified as ours, the only penalty we will get is for taking unplayable ball relief. We don’t tack anything on for moving the ball.
Given that a ball might be resting high in the foliage, you might be wondering where you would actually take relief.
You’ve got the option of stroke-and-distance, back-on-the-line relief or two club-length lateral relief. To take advantage of the latter two, you need to know the spot of the original ball.
But if you were looking 20 feet into the air, what if you don’t know where that spot is? Don’t worry. You simply estimate the spot where the ball lay in the tree and use that as the reference point for taking relief.
The clarification covers one more situation. While I had no intention of playing the ball, what if you did fancy taking a punt and, while getting ready for the stroke, accidentally dislodged it?
Now you will get a one-stroke penalty for moving the ball and if you don’t replace it, deciding, for example, to take unplayable ball relief, you’ll also get a one-stroke penalty for that too.
A bit of hubris and some carelessness in the branches have cost you a total of two strokes.
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 think of this golf ball stuck in a tree rule? Let me know by leaving a comment below, email me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or get in touch on X.
Main picture image is generated by AI | Source: Adobe Stock
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