Most golfers love a good halfway hut. It provides much needed respite. It’s a place to contemplate the good and bad from the first part of the round and to take on board some much needed sustenance for the remainder of the round.
Normally it’s a welcome sight, but not so much if you find it’s right in your path after hitting a wild one from the tee of the distant 12th hole. Upon reaching your ball, you find the halfway hut is directly between you and the heart of the 12th green where the hole is. You may be 200 yards offline but surely you should get relief from this cursed construction, now much maligned after receiving your custom and thanks not 45 minutes earlier. Turning to your partner, you ask “Do I get line-of-sight relief from a halfway hut?”
You probably won’t like the answer, which is probably… No.
A halfway hut is an Immovable Obstruction. That is (according to the definitions in The Rules;) any obstruction that cannot be moved without unreasonable effort or without damaging the obstruction or the course.
Rule 16.1 covers Abnormal Course Conditions (Including Immovable Obstructions.) It says that you are allowed relief from an immovable obstruction (the halfway hut) if your ball is either in it, on it or touching it, or if the immovable obstruction physically interferes with your area of intended stance or intended swing.
It goes on to say that if it (the halfway hut in this instance) is close enough to distract the player but does not meet the other requirements (i.e. it is just in the player’s line-of-sight) there is no relief under this rule.
So, if your ball is not in (or on) the halfway hut or your stance or swing are not impeded by the halfway hut, you’re not going to get relief.
The only way you might get line-of-sight relief from the halfway hut is if it has been deemed a temporary immovable obstruction (TIO) by the committee under Model Local Rule (MLR) F-23. A TIO is an obstruction that is not normally present and is not considered to be part of the challenge of playing the course. TIOs generally come into play during tournament golf – things like grandstands, TV towers, tents, scoreboards etc...
If the halfway hut has been erected temporarily, for whatever reason, the committee might decide to apply this model local rule. It gives the player one additional relief option to those available for standard immovable obstructions and that is, to take line-of-sight relief from the TIO if is straight on the line between ball and the hole.
But most halfway huts will not be deemed TIOs under this (MLR) as they are not temporary. So, generally speaking, you do not get line-of-sight relief from a halfway hut and will simply have to play out sideways. Bad luck.
