The first thing to consider with this question – Is your ball on the green? If your ball is off the green and there are no preferred lies in place then you cannot lift and clean your ball without penalty.
If your ball was sitting on the fringe, no matter whether you marked it with the toe of your putter, a ball marker, a tee or similar, if you lifted it to clean it, you would have broken Rule 9.4b and would incur a one stroke penalty.
Let’s assume for the purposes of answering this question that your ball is on the green.
You’ve played a putt up to within a foot or two of the hole, and you’re looking to tap it in and get out of the way of your playing partners.
But, on reaching it, you notice the ball has collected a little sandy dirt on its journey across the putting surface.
You don’t have a ball marker to hand, so you pop the toe of your putter behind the ball and leave it there. You then pick the ball up, give it a quick clean and place it back down on its original spot before tapping in.
Have you broken any Rules?
The answer to that is – No. You have done nothing against the Rules of Golf.
To start with Rule 13.1b says that a ball on the putting green may be lifted and cleaned. So, in picking it up and cleaning it, you were within the Rules.
That Rule continues to say, though, that the spot of the ball must be marked before it’s lifted.
Now you have to look to Rule 14.1a. If a ball must be marked, then you can either place a ball marker behind or right next to the ball. Or, here is the key point, you can hold a club on the ground right behind or right next to the ball.
So, you are allowed to mark your ball with the toe of your putter.
Rule 13.1b goes on to say that after marking and lifting the ball, it must be replaced on its original spot.
Now Rule 14.2 is relevant. You must replace the ball on its original spot. You can’t put your putter to the back of the ball and then replace it to the side of the putter.
If you replace it in the wrong spot and make a stroke you will have played from the wrong place and will incur a general penalty of two strokes in stroke play or loss of hole in matchplay.
You must also replace it correctly, setting it down by hand and letting it go. You cannot roll it into place with your foot or similar. If you don’t replace it correctly, you incur a one stroke penalty.
To summarise. If your ball is on the putting green, you are within the Rules if you mark using the toe of your putter, lift and clean your ball and place it back correctly on its original spot.
