With score posting starting today, you may find it 65 degrees in the sunny fairway and some remaining snow in the shady rough and bunkers! Do you know how proceed so you can still post your score?
According to the Rules of Golf, “snow and natural ice, other than frost, are either casual water or loose impediments at the option of the player.” How a player takes relief from snow depends on where their ball lies and if they want to consider the snow casual water or a loose impediment.
For example, let’s say that a player’s ball comes to rest in a drift of snow in a bunker. According to Rule 23 – Loose Impediments, a player may not remove loose impediments from a bunker without penalty when his ball lies in the same bunker. In this case, the player would be foolish to consider the snow a loose impediment because he would not get free relief. If he decided to brush the snow away from his ball, he would be penalized two strokes in stroke play or loss of hole in match play.
However, in the scenario above, the player would be able to play the snow as casual water and get free relief from the abnormal ground condition. Rule 25-1b says that in order to take relief from an abnormal ground condition, in this case snow, the player may lift the ball and drop it without penalty within one club-length of and not nearer the hole than the nearest point of relief. Additionally, when the ball is in a bunker, the nearest point of relief must be in the bunker. As you can see, knowing the rules can be a tremendous advantage and can save the player an unnecessary penalty.
We are in that time of year where it can snow on Tuesday and be 55 and sunny on Wednesday. Just wear your golf shorts under your snow pants and make sure that you know what to do when your ball finds a stray snow drift or frozen puddle. And post that score!
