Have you ever wobbled on a waggle? Have you clipped the top of your ball when getting ready to strike?
This email question should be filed in the drawer labelled ‘things every golfer in the world has done at least once’.
“What happens if I touch the ball with the club while preparing to hit a shot on the fairway but do not move it? Penalty or not?”
What do you think? The answer lies below…
Touching golf ball at address: Can you touch your golf ball on the fairway?
The key here is the ball doesn’t move. If it does it’s a whole new ball game. We’ll get on to that in a second.
You can’t deliberately touch a ball at rest, says Rule 9.4b. You’ll pick up a penalty shot if you do. But assuming it’s an accident, you don’t have to tack anything onto your score. Relax.
Rule 9.2a says a player’s ball at rest is treated as having moved “only if it is known or virtually certain that it did”. If it might have moved, but you don’t know, then the rule says it hasn’t moved and must be played as it lies.
The definition of moved is when a ball at rest “has left its original spot and come to rest on any other spot and this can be seen by the naked eye (whether or not anyone actually sees it do so).”
It hasn’t moved if it only wobbles or oscillates, and either stays on or returns to its original spot.
What if the ball does shift? If it has moved, next is working out how that happened. If you’re the cause, we’re back off to Rule 9.4b. Even though it was all an accident, it is a penalty stroke.
There’s more. If the ball has moved, you need to replace it on its original spot. Fail to do this and you’ve played from a wrong place. One shot now becomes two in stroke play, or loss of hole in match play.
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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. Send me your questions by emailing me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or leave a comment below.
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