In the photo above, the lie is so preposterous, it looks like a prank. It isn’t.
It actually occurred in a recent tournament in which a friend of the Etiquetteist was competing.
Talk about bad luck. Stripe a drive down the fairway, and your ball not in a divot hole but on the divot itself.
Not fair, right? But life’s not always fair. And neither is golf.
Sometimes, you get what you get and you’re not entitled to get upset. At least, you’re not entitled to do anything about it. The guidelines of the game make this clear. Under Rule 9.1a, a “ball at rest on the course must be played as it lies,” except when the Rules allow for relief.
In the case of a dislodged tuft of turf, relief is not permitted.
The same is true if your ball settles in a divot. Bad lie? Too bad. Some people think that rule should change. Among them: Bernhard Langer. In a 2022 interview with GOLF.com, the Ageless One argued that “we should be dropping out of divots” because “divots are made by us.”
The former longtime broadcaster Peter Kostis takes a similar stance.
“If a sand-filled divot isn’t ground under repair,” he once said, “then I don’t know what those words mean.”
The counter-argument holds that changing the rule to allow for relief from divots would lead the game down a slippery slope. What, exactly, qualifies as a divot? On this matter, the thinking goes, certain golfers would be bound disagree. In just a matter of time, players would be seeking relief for the slightest imperfections. And from there, anarchy!
The Etiquetteist agrees. He believes the rule should remain as is. But that doesn’t mean it should apply in every round we play.
To borrow from Bobby Jones, there is tournament golf and regular golf, and they are not at all the same. Nor should they be treated identically. In regular golf, with our friends, we should do our best to play by the rules. But when plainly ridiculous scenarios arise — like, for instance, the lie in the photo above — and there’s no need to protect the field; reason should prevail.
Might there be disagreements on what counts as ridiculous? Sure, there might. But in most cases, golfers playing in a casual match are capable of coming to a consensus. And when they can’t, they bring to the argument to the bar after the round, which is entertaining in itself.
If you’re dead-set on avoiding those types of disputes, your best bet is to establish the conditions of your match before you start. Make it explicit on the first tee that no matter what happens, no matter how absurdly bad a lie you draw, you are going to play it as it lies.
That, too, has potential benefits, as you never know what might happen next. You might wind up with a memorable story.
That’s what happened to the guy the Etiquetteist mentioned up top. Abiding by the rules, he played his approach from the loose toupee of turf and knocked it on the green from 185 yards out.
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