On the green! New rules apply….
There may be no region of the course that has more rule changes associated with it than the putting green. Most of these new changes relax the way we approach playing on the green.
For instance, it’s no longer a penalty to make a putt on the green and hit the flagstick. Go ahead, leave the stick in if you’d like. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this has led even some pro players to leave the stick in the hole for all of their putts. Just keep in mind that if your ball does hit the stick and doesn’t drop in the hole but ricochets off of the stick, you can’t say the putt is holed and pick the ball up. You must accept what the stick does to your ball and play your next stroke from the new position. How about when you make a put and the ball becomes wedged between the flag and the edge of the hole? If any portion of the ball is below the edge of the hole, the ball is considered holed. Now on a windy day when the stick is moving a lot, you might not want that flag in the hole – it might push a wedged ball away from the hole before you can determine if the ball is below the hole edge. It’s now also no longer a penalty to hit a stick that has been taken out of the hole and laid on the green – you just have to play from the spot after the deflection.
Another bonus from the rule-makers is that you can fix (with your hand, with a club, ball mark tool, tee, etc.) any imperfection in the green (with the intent of restoring the surface of the green to its original condition) prior to making a putt (within a reasonable timeframe (without unreasonably delaying play). This includes old ball marks, shoe scuffs, spike marks, the edges of an old hole plug, animal tracks or hoof prints, embedded acorns, etc. It does not include diseased portions of the green, damage caused by irrigation, aeration holes, or dead spots. As an added bonus, even if your ball is NOT yet on the green, you may make improvements. The classic example of a bad rule that just went off the books is you hit the green, make a large ball mark, and your ball spins a couple of feet back just into the fringe. Since you weren’t on the green, fixing that ball mark (even if it’s right in the line you want to take to the hole) before you got on the green was a two-stroke penalty. In 2019, you may fix that ball mark and anything else on the green even if you’re not making a putt from the green surface. That’s a rule that gets a big thumbs up from me.
The dreaded “Whoops! Backed right into my ball!” penalty is now gone. Accidental movement of a ball on the putting green no longer comes with a two-stroke penalty. That goes for your ball marker as well. If you do accidentally move either your ball or your marker, no penalty and you must replace the ball or marker. However, don’t pick your ball up without marking it. That’s still a penalty in 2019.
How about movement by natural forces while on the green? I know I’d talked previously about the slope on the front of the putting green at the 15th hole at Augusta National and Billy Horschel’s misfortune there in 2016. After chipping his ball from the left edge of the green (nearly on in two), Billy had marked his ball on the green and placed it back down to survey his putt. Video is here (https://www.masters.com/en_US/watch/2016/r3_29420_15.html). On it's own (wind aided) the ball decided it liked the pond in front of the green better than the green surface and wandered its way into the penalty area. Back in 2016 Billy elected to chip again from the location of his last play, but he could also have decided to play from the other side of the pond on the line between the hole and the location where the ball last crossed into the penalty area. In 2019 (assuming Billy had marked his ball at rest), and even if he had picked that ball up, put it back down and removed the marker and the ball decided to move, he'd be able to place the ball on that spot (best estimate) and make his putt. If you think your ball might be in a precarious position, mark it quickly! (Another reason to play quickly!)
As it’s been for a long time, you can still remove loose impediments on the green surface (leaves, sticks, whirlybirds, acorns, goose droppings, chunks of sand, aeration plugs, etc.) You can still clean your ball after it’s been marked on the putting surface. On the fringe? No dice. No clean. If you do clean your ball when it’s not on the green or unless another rule applies which allows it, 2-stroke penalty. When might another rule apply? Here’s another classic case. You almost made the green with your approach shot but the ball embeds in the fringe and is full of mud. You can (as always) play the ball as it lies, but a better option is probably to seek free relief using the embedded ball rule (#16.3) which allows you to lift the ball, clean the ball, and drop it in the relief area (one club-length to either side of the original spot no closer to the hole (which may (depending on the geometry) actually allow you to drop the ball on the green). As long as the ball remains in the relief area after drop, you play from that new position. How about if your ball is not embedded in the fringe but still has a big blob of mud on it? No relief, no clean, play your shot with the mud on the ball. The Player's edition also provides nice diagrams of when a ball is considered to be embedded.
Hitting a ball with another ball on the green is addressed in the same manner as in previous years. If the ball striking the ball on the green was played from outside of the green, no penalty and the struck ball must be replaced in the original position (or your best estimate). If the ball striking the ball on the green was played from on the green, 2 penalty strokes to the player hitting the ball at rest – have players mark their balls on the green to avoid this penalty.
Having your ball come to rest on the wrong putting green is still addressed with the same set of rules we’ve been using. Don’t play a ball from the wrong putting green (that’s a 2-stroke penalty). Take relief by finding the nearest point of relief where you aren’t standing on the green to make your next stroke and drop it in a one club-length relief area. At Ruggles there aren’t many instances (thank you, Mr. Ault) where you end up on the wrong green. I guess it might be possible to overshoot #7 and have your ball come to rest on #1, and maybe you could end up on #17 teeing up from #15, but I’ve never heard of anyone using this rule during league play. There are a lot of courses where this rule applies frequently.
The song remains the same for temporary water (previously known as casual water) on the green. You still get nearest full relief (stance and ball location), and that location may be off of the green. The USGA does have a nice diagram in the Player's Guide (shown below).
