Did Rory Get An Undeserved Favorable Ruling?

[Jim_Coleman]

   The procedure used to determine if Rory's ball was embedded seemed suspect.  Rory didn't touch the ball and called for an official (correctly done, unlike Reed); the official removed the ball from the lie (correct again); she then stuck her finger into the depression to feel for a hole. No visual inspection occurred, I don't think.
   I've had many balls "embed” in heavy grass that made a round indentation in the grass but did not pierce the surface. It seems to me that only a visual inspection could definitively answer that question. John VDB, what say you?

[Alex Miller]

I'll just mention my POV based on having played those and similar bunkers in Socal with built up dry dirt lips. The soil beneath the hairy eyebrow bunkers often has cracks in the vertical wall. Rory's ball seemed to have landed and stayed in one of those cracks. I can't say if it was embedded in the traditional sense obviously but could comment on the fact that his ball likely had soil on three sides: beneath, adjacent, and above. This is probably a gray area in the rules and I would love to hear a more knowledgeable interpretation of what is embedded, but soil (well a foot of dirt with grass on top) was what figured into the ruling from my perspective.

[Jim_Coleman]

Alex:  Maybe so. But shouldn’t someone look?

[John Kavanaugh]

A blonde official got prostrate and observed the lie.

[Jim_Coleman]

   If that’s what she did, all good. I thought she only stuck her finger in the indentation.

[Marty Bonnar]

The finest comedic Post juxtaposition on GCA for many’s a year. Well done, both!

[Erik J. Barzeski]

   The procedure used to determine if Rory's ball was imbedded seemed suspect.  Rory didn't touch the ball and called for an official (correctly done, unlike Reed);

What both Rory and Reed did was fine. You don't have to call for a Rules Official, and you're allowed to mark and lift the ball to check for the indentation.

[John Kavanaugh]

The Golf gods rewarded him with boges. All is right with the world.

[Daryl David]

He was very lucky. Not for the imbedded ruling, but the fact they found it. I was sure the 3 min were going to expire and he was going to head back up the fairway. Then we would have argued for ten pages about why the 5 min was reduced to 3. 

[Niall C]

He was very lucky. Not for the imbedded ruling, but the fact they found it. I was sure the 3 min were going to expire and he was going to head back up the fairway. Then we would have argued for ten pages about why the 5 min was reduced to 3. 

Or alternatively we could be arguing that it was time to give up on frilly edged bunkers ?


Niall

[Kyle Harris]

He was very lucky. Not for the imbedded ruling, but the fact they found it. I was sure the 3 min were going to expire and he was going to head back up the fairway. Then we would have argued for ten pages about why the 5 min was reduced to 3. 

Or alternatively we could be arguing that it was time to give up on frilly edged bunkers ?


Niall

This.


Nearly all these so-called “problems” with the RoG are because completely preventable situations.


Don’t like OB? Plenty of courses have almost none in range of play.

[David Kelly]

Between Twitter and here I can really see how greens committees and members f***ed up so many golf courses for so many years and still do with their "take a bazooka to kill a fly" approaches to solving course issues and misperceived course issues.  Hanse GCD, Renaissance Golf Design and Infinite Variety Golf Design, and their successors will never want for work in the coming decades and generations.

[Pete_Pittock]

embedded, not imbedded.


If you wanted to do a visual inspection you probably would have needed a flashlight. You can feel the depth of an embedded ball mark with a finger and compare it with with surrounding areas. If there is a consistent depth it is not embedded. If the finger goes further in where the ball was, the ball was embedded.

[Niall C]

Question for the resident rules guys;


Could the referee have gone in to the bunker to check from there bearing in mind Scheffler was in that bunker ?


Niall

[Jim_Coleman]

Question for the resident rules guys;


Could the referee have gone in to the bunker to check from there bearing in mind Scheffler was in that bunker ?

   I’m not a rules guy, but I don’t see why not. She could have avoided Scottie’s lie and then raked her tracks, no? That’s what a player who hit first would do.

Niall

[Jon Sweet]

   The procedure used to determine if Rory's ball was embedded seemed suspect.  Rory didn't touch the ball and called for an official (correctly done, unlike Reed); the official removed the ball from the lie (correct again); she then stuck her finger into the depression to feel for a hole. No visual inspection occurred, I don't think.
   I've had many balls "embed” in heavy grass that made a round indentation in the grass but did not pierce the surface. It seems to me that only a visual inspection could definitively answer that question. John VDB, what say you?

Unless I am getting it all wrong, Reed was well within the rules to remove the ball and determine it was plugged.  He could then call the official over which he did.  The optics of it was the problem, not his actions.  If it was any other player, it wouldn't have gotten half the attention his did.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Unless I am getting it all wrong, Reed was well within the rules to remove the ball and determine it was plugged.  He could then call the official over which he did.  The optics of it was the problem, not his actions.  If it was any other player, it wouldn't have gotten half the attention his did.

Exactly.

[Peter Flory]

I have a hard time believing that it was possible to embed a ball on that course in those conditions. 

[Kyle Harris]

I have a hard time believing that it was possible to embed a ball on that course in those conditions.

Cool.


Were they watering the bunker sand to keep the sand firm?

[Mark Smolens]

Unless I am getting it all wrong, Reed was well within the rules to remove the ball and determine it was plugged.  He could then call the official over which he did.  The optics of it was the problem, not his actions.  If it was any other player, it wouldn't have gotten half the attention his did.

Exactly.

You mean the optics of the ball bouncing into the lie that he didn't like?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

You mean the optics of the ball bouncing into the lie that he didn't like?

Nope. Patrick didn't do anything wrong under the Rules of Golf (in this instance).

[Rob Marshall]

You mean the optics of the ball bouncing into the lie that he didn't like?

Nope. Patrick didn't do anything wrong under the Rules of Golf (in this instance).

How about the fact it “looked” like he was pressing the ball into the ground to create a depression?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

How about the fact it “looked” like he was pressing the ball into the ground to create a depression?

It only looked like that if you disliked Patrick Reed prior. He puts a tee in the ground (and pushes it in, of course), and then removes his ball.

[Rob Marshall]

How about the fact it “looked” like he was pressing the ball into the ground to create a depression?

It only looked like that if you disliked Patrick Reed prior. He puts a tee in the ground (and pushes it in, of course), and then removes his ball.

He clearly puts the tee in the ground then puts his hand on the ball. Too different motions. Only Reed knows...

[Erik J. Barzeski]

He clearly puts the tee in the ground then puts his hand on the ball. Too different motions. Only Reed knows...

Yes, he marks the location of the ball, then lifts the ball.

So like I said, so far as anyone but him knows, he did nothing wrong under the Rules.