Find your ball sitting on a fringe and it’s often just as good as it being on the putting surface. At some courses, it’s even hard to figure out where the apron ends and the green begins.
Kudos once again to our hard-working greenkeepers but the quality of the course does raise some interesting questions about how you might need to take relief.
Consider the following scenario left in our comments: “When there is ground under repair on the apron of the green and you take relief, can you place the ball, or do you have to drop it?”
It’s a good question, mainly because it also asks whether there is a difference between the fringe and the green. So what do you think?
What the Rules say about the fringe and the putting green
The apron or fringe, however you choose to describe it, is part of the general area. It’s not part of the putting green. So if your ball is in ground under repair on the fringe, you would be dropping when taking relief.
Both your nearest point of complete relief and your one club-length relief area have to be in the general area, so says Rule 16.1b, so you wouldn’t be able to drop on the green.
It could also be the case that the nearest point of complete relief, which rids you of “all interference by the abnormal course condition”, takes you off the fringe.
Remember, it’s the nearest point not the nicest.
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.
Is the fringe part of the green? What do you make of this rule? 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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