Rules Guy: Can you use a tee to test bunker depth before hitting?

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

Our course has a few refurbished bunkers built with an Astroturf base and revetted faces of stacked Astro­turf. Some of the bunkers only have a thin coating of sand, which can produce bladed shots when the wedge’s bounce hits that Astro­turf base. I know the new rules don’t allow you to test the surface with your hand or club, but what about checking the sand’s depth with a long tee? —Jim Cumberbatch, via e-mail

Stacked Astroturf … it sounds like the club hired Old Tom Morris as the architect and Sanford & Son as the contractor! In point of fact, the Rule number — 12.2b(1) — may have changed but this Rule hasn’t, namely, players are prohibited from touching the sand in a bunker to glean information about it for the next stroke. No hand, no club, no tee, no rake, no garden shovel.

The penalty also remains the same — the general penalty of two strokes in stroke play and loss of hole in match play. More commonly, should you come across a bunker with little to no sand not staked as ground under repair, you can: Play two balls, one as it lies and one taking relief, and get a ruling later from the commit­tee (stroke play only); play under stroke and distance, replaying from the prior spot with a one-stroke pen­alty; or, under the new ball-unplay­able rule, drop outside the bunker, using back-on-the-line relief, for two penalty strokes. Also, if they replace the greens with shag car­peting, find a new course.

For more bunker-related guidance from our guru, read on …

Rules

A local course designer here on Vancouver Island wanted to be the next Pete Dye — he built a large bunker with steep railroad ties in the face, and two separate staircases to get in and out built into the ties. Naturally, my ball came to rest on one of the stairs’ steps, which were so steep that no shot could possibly be played. As it was a tournament, there was a rules guy present, who said I got free relief outside the bunker, treating the ties and stairs as if I had embedded in a grass face. Was this correct? —Mike Marshall, Nanoose Bay, BC, Canada

Was this rules guy calling himself “Rules Guy”? If so, our lawyers would like to have a word with him…

Regardless, he didn’t adjudicate the matter as if the ball were embedded; he treated the railroad ties and stairs as what they are, namely, immovable obstructions.

The Committee must determine whether such obstructions are inside the bunker or out, and in this case it sounds as if they were considered the ladder, er, latter. (A ball on top of an IO where sand normally would be, would be treated as in the bunker, but this is not really the case for stairs or railroad ties on the wall.)

Ergo, you got free relief under Rule 16.1b for being in the general area since the ball was not technically in the bunker, the ins and outs of which one can learn more by reading Rule 12.1.

Need help unriddling the greens at your home course? Pick up a custom Green Book from GolfLogix.

Got a question about the Rules? Ask the Rules Guy! Send your queries, confusions and comments to rulesguy@golf.com. We promise he won’t throw the book at you.

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