Rule of the Month: Penalty Areas/Stakes

Penalty Areas: Learn how to bear in mind the distinction between Yellow and Purple

By Suzanne Olsen

Some Penalty Areas (PA) are marked crimson in spots, and yellow in others, so what to do?

Crucial factor to find out is the spot the place your ball final crossed the sting of the PA. The sting of a PA extends up and down. That is your reference level for taking reduction with a one-stroke penalty.

Keep in mind that you could be hit out of a PA with out a penalty. Not all PAs have water in them in spite of everything. Even should you resolve to hit out of a PA and fail to get it out, or hit it OB, or into an unplayable lie exterior of the PA, you should still proceed below the PA Rule (Rule 17.1d), utilizing the spot the place the ball final crossed the sting of the PA because the reference level for taking reduction – taking the penalty stroke for OB or unplayable, plus the penalty for PA reduction.

Let’s assessment the choices that value a golfer a one-stroke penalty:

1. Hit from the place you initially hit the ball (stroke and distance)
2. Maintain the purpose the place the ball final crossed the sting of the PA between you and the flagstick. Select a reference level on that line, way back to you want. Drop the ball inside one membership size of the reference level not nearer the outlet than the reference level.

               1 & 2 are the identical as for Yellow.

3. Drop a ball inside two membership lengths of the purpose the place the ball final crossed the sting of the          PA, no nearer to the outlet. You could use any membership in your bag to measure.

          Be aware: As with many Guidelines offering reduction choices, not all choices are at all times obtainable given the scenario.

 The idea of the place the ball final crossed the sting of the PA appears to be as complicated because the distinction between Yellow and Purple. It’s essential to precisely establish it although, so you may correctly take reduction.

 For instance, a ball might cross the sting on the tee facet of a physique of water, sail over the water in the direction of a inexperienced, hit a tree on the opposite facet that’s 20 ft from the PA, and bounce again into the water. The place did the ball final cross the sting? On the inexperienced facet. If the ball had one way or the other hit one thing on the bottom on the inexperienced facet exterior of water however inside the fringe of the penalty line, after which bounced backward into the water, the place is the final place it crossed the sting? On the tee facet.

 Your reference level for taking reduction will probably be completely different in these two instances, and your choices for reduction will probably be dictated by the colour of the PA the place the ball final crossed. It’s doable (though unlikely) {that a} ball may bounce round and cross the sting of a PA a number of instances. Solely the place it LAST crossed is related!

 And at last, some PAs are marked with a crimson and yellow stake proper subsequent to one another…..huh??!! Let’s say the left one is yellow and the appropriate one is crimson. A part of the PA is handled as yellow and a part of it’s handled as crimson. (Course designers intend so that you can must hit over a PA as a part of the problem of the course, in order that they mark it yellow.) So in case your ball crosses the sting of the PA to the left, you have got the 2 “yellow” choices, and if to the appropriate, the three crimson choices.

 Suzanne Olsen is an NCGA Licensed Guidelines Official.