THE RULE OF THE WEEK...from Jim Kormondy

Jim Kormondy's Rule of the Week

WHERE TO DROP FOR UNPLAYABLE LIE UNDER THE LIP OF A BUNKER

The Rules of Golf define a bunker as a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which the turf has been removed and filled with sand. Grass covered ground bordering or within the bunker is not a part of the bunker. The margin of the bunker extends vertically downwards, but not upwards. Furthermore, A ball is in the bunker when any part of it touches the bunker.

This is important to know if you decide to call the ball unplayable. When you take an unplayable lie for a ball that is in a bunker, you must drop the ball in the bunker, either within two clublengths no closer to the hole or on a line going back from the hole through where the ball lay. Your only other option is to return to the point where you hit your previous shot from and take the stroke and distance penalty.

In this situation the ball has become completely embedded in the vertical lip of the bunker. You might look at it and think that your ball is not in the bunker because it has gone beyond the vertically downward plane of the lip. However, this is not the case because the ball is considered to be lying in the part of the course where it entered the ground.

So, if your ball is situated such as the one in the figure, you may not invoke the imbedded ball rule. You must play the ball or declare it unplayable in the bunker.