You’ve played a solid drive up the middle of the 10th fairway and have an enticing 150-yard approach into the green. You’re feeling confident.
You make a steady backswing but then get too eager in the transition, you come over the top and pull the shot. As such, the ball goes long and left, it kicks on further and comes to rest on the 12th green, 20 yards beyond your target putting surface.
Upon reaching the ball you realise that you have a perfect lie on the 12th green from which to play a spinning chip back to the 10th.
You decide to play the ball as it lies and clip it nicely off the 12th putting surface, executing your shot perfectly. You’re feeling rather proud of yourself as you walk back to the 10th green to face a five-foot par putt.
But as you’re reaching for your putter, a playing partner asks the question – “shouldn’t you have taken a drop from there?” … You had thought you could just play it as lied. Was that correct? What do the Rules say?
Well it’s bad news. It wasn’t correct. Rule 13.1f says that relief “must” be taken from a wrong green.
If any part of your ball touches a wrong green (that is a green you are not aiming for on that hole) or if that wrong green interferes with your stance or intended swing then you must not play the ball as it lies.
What you must do if your ball lies on a wrong green or if that wrong green is in the way of your stance or swing is – find the nearest point of complete relief, where your ball, stance or swing are not interfered with by the wrong green.
Once you have established that reference point, you have a one club-length relief area to drop in, no closer to the hole than the reference point.
If you play a ball from a wrong green you have played from a wrong place and you will face the general penalty under Rule 14.7a.
You must then consider Rule 14.7b in terms of how to complete the hole after playing from a wrong place, if you are playing stroke play. Have you gained a significant advantage.
If you have not gained a significant advantage, say your drop would have been just off the edge of the wrong green on a closely mown surface, you would play out the hole with the ball played from the wrong place (with a general penalty.)
If you had gained a significant advantage, say your drop would have been in thick rough just off the greenside and you had played it from a perfect, tightly cut putting green, you would need to play out the hole with a ball played from the right place…
You would need to correct your mistake and drop a ball in the relief area created by your nearest point of relief from the wrong green.
If you didn’t correct your mistake before making a stroke at the next hole, you would be disqualified.
If you don’t know whether the breach was serious, you can play two balls and report the facts to the committee.
Some courses have double greens, the Old Course at St Andrews for instance. If you land on the wrong half of a double green, you are not on a wrong green and you should play the ball as it lies.
