Can you ground your club in a sand bunker now?
The changes also include simplifying the rules for bunkers, allowing players to touch or move loose impediments in a bunker and ground their club in the sand before making a stroke. Lastly, the time allowed for searching for a lost ball has been reduced from five to three minutes.
In a bunker, the club can touch the ground. Please level sand after hitting the ball.
A. Touching the sand with your club immediately in front of or behind your ball, during a practice swing or during your backswing is a penalty (see Rule 12.2b(1)). If you do this, you get a loss of hole penalty in match play or two penalty strokes in stroke play.
Players must avoid making any contact between their club and the sand before hitting a shot. The only time it's OK to touch the sand before a shot is when you're not testing the condition — i.e., if you're using a club as support to enter a bunker.
A player is allowed to touch or move loose impediments and touch the ground with hand or club (such as grounding the club right behind the ball) for any reason, subject only to the prohibition on improving conditions for the stroke (see Rule 8.1a).
10. Grounding Your Club in a Hazard Practice swings may be taken inside a hazard as long as you don't touch the ground, sand or water with your club. The top of the grass may be touched during a practice swing. The penalty for grounding your club is loss of the hole in Match Play or a 2 shot penalty in Stroke Play.
When may I rake the bunker? A. When your ball is in a bunker, you may rake the bunker at any time to care for the course as long as you do not improve the conditions affecting your upcoming stroke (this means to improve your lie, area of intended stance, area of intended swing or line of play) (see Rule 12.2b(2)).
So that the challenge of playing from the sand is preserved, there are a few things you are not permitted to do when your ball is in a bunker. These include testing the condition of the bunker, touching the sand right around your ball, and making a practice swing that touches the sand.
Gone, too, is the penalty for grounding your club or removing loose impediments in a hazard. Whether you're facing a shot from the dry bank of a lake or trying to hit it back into play from the edge of the water, you can ground your club just like you would in the middle of the fairway.
What You Need to Know. There is no relief under this rule for a ball that is embedded in a penalty area or bunker. EXCEPTIONS - There are a few instances when relief is not allowed for a ball that is embedded in the general area. When the ball is embedded in sand that is not cut to fairway height.
Do you get relief from foot print in a bunker?
Before dropping a ball using the back-on-the-line relief procedure outside the bunker or, after dropping a ball but before making his or her next stroke, the player smooths footprints in the bunker on the line of play. Rule 12.2b(3) applies and there is no penalty.
Regardless, under Rule 12.2b, it's the general penalty of two strokes in stroke play and loss of hole in match play for touching the sand in a bunker with a practice swing.
The definition of bunker tells us that soil, or any growing or attached natural object inside the edge of the bunker, is not, repeat not, part of the bunker. Thus, you could indeed ground your club on the grass itself.
A. When the bunker is filled with temporary water, you may play your ball as it lies or take free relief in the bunker.
When playing a shot from a penalty area, you can remove any detached natural or artificial object (known as loose impediments and movable obstructions), ground your club behind the ball, or take practice swings that touch the ground.
When you take relief from a penalty area, you get one penalty stroke. For yellow penalty areas, you have two relief options. For red penalty areas, you have three relief options (the same two relief options as you do for yellow, plus one additional option.)
What to Do When Ball Is Lost or Out of Bounds. If a ball is lost or out of bounds, the player must take stroke-and-distance relief by adding one penalty stroke and playing the original ball or another ball from where the previous stroke was made (see Rule 14.6).
To possibly save time, play a provisional ball if you believe that your original may be lost or out of bounds. If you find your original ball in play, then your provisional is obsolete and you've got to proceed with your original.
Under the old rules, if you found your ball inside of red or yellow stakes but in a still-playable lie, you could play the shot without penalty, but you were not allowed to ground your club or remove loose impediments. But now, under the updated Rules of Golf, you can do both.
Yellow water hazards
You can, of course, play your ball as it lies in the hazard, if possible. If you choose to take relief, below are your two options, each for one penalty stroke: Proceed under stroke and distance by dropping a ball at the spot of your previous stroke.
Why can't you ground your club in a bunker?
Deliberately testing the condition of the sand with a hand or club continues to be prohibited because part of the player's challenge is to assess and predict how the sand may affect the stroke, and also because it is time consuming and inappropriate for players to dig in the sand with a hand or club for that purpose ...
If a ball might be a player's ball but cannot be identified as it lies: The player may lift the ball to identify it (including by rotating it), but: The spot of the ball must first be marked, and the ball must not be cleaned more than needed to identify it (except on the putting green) (see Rule 14.1).
When a player's ball is in a bunker: The player may take unplayable ball relief for one penalty stroke under any of the options in Rule 19.2, except that: The ball must be dropped in and come to rest in the bunker if the player takes either back-on-the-line relief (see Rule 19.2b) or lateral relief (see Rule 19.2c).
May I remove an out of bounds stake? A. No, objects marking course boundaries may not be moved. If you do move one of these objects before you play and doing so makes your next stroke easier in any way, you must put it back before you make a stroke.
A ball in a water hazard can be played as it lies from the water hazard without penalty, though often this is not possible or practical.
