Was involved in another good match two weeks ago - both singles matches were very competitive and you know what that meant - it was interesting down to the very last putt. Having good weather was also a good bonus, and our competitors were pleasant and good company. Unfortunately, the rules of golf intruded on one hole and caused a good bit of uncertainty.
One of our competitors was playing for a big fade off the tee on #14 and ended up pulling the ball left toward the trees on the edge of the driving range. I saw where the ball ended up - right behind on the pines over there and said "I think that ball may be out-of-bounds." The owner of the ball wasn't as sure and indicated that he'd come back to the tee if he had to.
In typical Ruggles Golf Course fashion (you're probably familiar with my continual aggravation regarding the lack of proper marking on our course), instead of driving some white stakes up the left hand side of the fairway, they've elected to spray paint a white line up the trunk of about every other tree along the fairway (on the fairway side of the tree). Why do this? They don't have to remove the stakes to mow the course. They've done the same thing with other out-of-bounds areas (painting a white strip on the power poles on #11 and #16 for instance, but if you really want to mark a course properly, it should be staked so you can stand behind one stake, sight down the line to the next stake and determine if your ball is in bounds or out-of-bounds.
So, when we find the competitor's ball, he's right behind the trunk of one of the trees that's been spray painted with that white mark. If you look at the photo above, it would have been the equivalent of having his ball come to rest on the white stripe, and the white stripe would have been the width of the tree trunk. When is a ball out of bounds? When the whole ball is across the imaginary line between the two stakes (or trees in this case). The imaginary line starts at the edge of the stake (or tree) closest to the course - so if the whole ball is across that imaginary line, the ball is out of bounds.
So, I start to walk away, but our competitor pulls out a club and addresses the ball, intent on knocking it back into the fairway. Seeing this, I said "Sorry, but that ball is out of bounds. You can't play it." Our competitor says "I think it's still in bounds, but I will play two balls and record two scores and leave it up to the committee to decide." So, he played that ball (assuming it was in bounds) and also went back to the tee to play another (assuming the first ball was OB). Playing two balls meant we didn't have to have an argument, and kudos for our competitor handling the situation with grace. The problem was, when we'd wrapped up our round (due to the tight match), we were either going to get 8 and a half or 12 and a half points (his match was either lost or tied, team net was either lost or halved, and that hole point was up in the air).
I believe our competitors consulted with the committee in the clubhouse after play and resolved the issue (the ball was indeed out of bounds), but if you can't find Fran Lauer or Steve Hensley or Dave Edwards or any of the other league representatives, you can always write down both scores and explain each on the back of the scorecard.