Imagine the scenario – You’ve hit a tee shot that is headed perilously close to a fairway bunker. You watch on anxiously.
It bounces a couple of times, does a “wall of death” move around the edge and spins out over the top – safely beyond the trap.
You’re feeling your luck is clearly in as you walk down to play your second shot. The golfing gods are smiling on you.
But your good humour fades somewhat when you see the lie of your ball. The ball is not in the bunker; it’s beyond it as you thought. But the area around the trap has been reasonably recently renovated, the surrounds of the bunker have been re-turfed.
The weather over the last few weeks has been dry and the turf has struggled to bed in properly and knit together. Your ball has come to rest in a rather deep seem between two cuts of turf.
You look around desperately for signs of ground under repair (GUR), but there are none. Surely though you automatically get relief for this scenario…. Do you? What do the Rules say?
Not automatically. If the area has not been marked as ground under repair, there would be no relief under Rule 16.1 – Abnormal course conditions.
There are some situations on course that are deemed ground under repair, even if not marked by the committee – a hole made by committee or maintenance staff in setting up or maintaining the course (not aeration holes) for example. And grass cuttings or other material piled for later removal.
Seams of cut turf are not included though.
But don’t give up on relief just yet, there is a chance that the committee has a local rule in place. If the committee is using Model Local Rule F-7, you would get free relief from a seam of cut turf.
It says that if a player’s ball lies in or touches a seam of cut turf or a seam interferes with the player’s area of intended swing, they may take relief from the general area or the putting green as per Rules 16.1b or 16.1d.
The local rule does not give relief if the seam of cut turf only interferes with your stance.
If the local rule is in place, then you would be entitled to free relief – one club length from the nearest point (reference point) where the seam no longer interferes with your lie or intended swing, no closer to the hole.
If there is no local rule in place, there is no relief from a seam of cut turf and you must play the ball as it lies.
