“Should a player be penalised for playing a stroke at a ball that later is proven to have been out of bounds, even though he had no idea it was OB? Sounds like a slippery slope.”
Now that is a question. Thanks to this emailer for bending my brain. I think there are a couple of ways to tackle this, depending on how the ball came to be out of bounds, so let’s set some boundaries…
A golf ball nestling in the first cut of rough | Source: Adobe Stock
Out of bounds rules: Can you ever play a ball that is out of bounds?
Let’s say you hadn’t clocked where the white posts or lines are. It can happen, I suppose.
You can’t play a ball that’s out of bounds and the only option at your disposal is to take stroke-and-distance.
What if you don’t do that and hit it anyway? Are you heading back to the clubhouse?
If it suddenly occurs to you that your ball was beyond the stakes, you have played a wrong ball, an example of which is defined as the “player’s own ball that is out of bounds”, and you’ll get the general penalty.
That’s loss of hole in match play.
In stroke play, it’s two shots and if you’ve played a wrong ball you must correct the mistake. Rule 6.3c says the “stroke made with the wrong ball and any more strokes before the mistake is corrected… do not count”.
But if you don’t fix it and hit a shot to begin another hole (or return the scorecard if it was the final hole of the round), then disqualification can’t be avoided.
Now what if you play a ball and then later find it has been moved back on the course after coming to rest out of bounds?
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Let’s say it’s a professional tournament and a spectator has sneaked it back within the course boundaries, or your errant shot went into someone’s back garden and you later find out they’d chucked it back over the fence. How do you sort that out?
There is a clarification to Rule 9.6 that shows the way. It says if you discover, after hitting a shot, that it had been moved onto the course by an outside influence after coming to rest out of bounds, then you have played a wrong ball.
But the penalty doesn’t apply, because it wasn’t known or virtually certain the ball had been OB “at the time the ball was played”.
What happens now is determined by when you discovered the ball had been out of bounds. In match play, the mistake must be corrected before the opponent makes their next stroke. If you find out after that, you continue to “play out the hole with the wrong ball”.
In stroke play, you fix the error if you find out before making a stroke to begin another hole, or returning your scorecard if it was the final hole of the round.
Once that moment has passed, your score with the wrong ball counts.
Main image: Golf balls are seen on the practice facilitates prior to the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek Country Club on December 05, 2023 in Malelane, South Africa | Source: Getty Images
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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 out of bounds 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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