Water Hazard

[fixyurdivot]

So I'm watching old reruns of Champion Tour events - Mitsubishi Classic specifically - and watched VJ dump his 3rd shot into the water which borders the 18th green. Reminiscent of Jordan Speith at the Masters .

The lake is yellow staked.  On his next shot (5th), his ball lands on the apron, past the hazard line, and rolls back into the water.  Same thing happens on his next (7th) shot.  I thought that if your ball lands outside the hazard before going into an unplayable position, you had the option to drop at the location it landed or hit again from the previous spot.  Now there was a designated drop zone behind the water hazard - perhaps this and/or the stake color changes rules?

 

[BigM]

There is a difference between red and yellow penalty areas.Yellow you can either use stroke and distance so play the ball from where you last hit under penalty of 1 stroke or back of line relief (yellow penalty area must be between you and the hole) with a 1 stroke penalty. The red penalty area gives you one more option that being lateral relief no closer to the hole from the point where the ball last crossed the margin of the red penalty area. You drop within 2 club lengths of the determined point where the ball crossed the margin.

[fixyurdivot]

20 hours ago, BigM said:

There is a difference between red and yellow penalty areas.Yellow you can either use stroke and distance so play the ball from where you last hit under penalty of 1 stroke or back of line relief (yellow penalty area must be between you and the hole) with a 1 stroke penalty. The red penalty area gives you one more option that being lateral relief no closer to the hole from the point where the ball last crossed the margin of the red penalty area. You drop within 2 club lengths of the determined point where the ball crossed the margin.

I should know these subtleties but I don't.  I was pretty sure we've been playing the red staked lakes on a couple of the course here in Yuma correctly.  One in particular has a lake that requires most second shots to go over (at least partly) to reach the green, and has a very large leafy tree between the lake and front of green towards the right side. A healthy number of approach shots catch the tree and drop down onto the bank, then roll into the lake.  In those cases, we've been dropping a ball at the point it landed.  So if this was yellow staked, we'd have to replay the shot from where it was made or point where it first crossed the hazard - correct?

[DaveP043]

The best thing is to refer you to the actual rules themselves:

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules/rules-2019/rules-of-golf/rules-and-interpretations.html#!ruletype=fr&section=rule&rulenum=17

Rule 17 discusses penalty areas, and has some decent illustrations of your options for both red and yellow penalty areas.  The illustrations also show how the new defitiotion of "relief area" looks in real life.

[BigM]

If yellow stakes you must always keep the penalty area between you and the flag...

[BigM]

DaveP043 is correct, the explanation and diagrams are very helpful as they make it clear.

[fixyurdivot]

Anyone know the history on why we have both yellow and red stake hazards?  Also, what factors determine which color is selected? Several articles on the subject state "...their almost the same".  Perhaps I'm alone in thinking this is another opportunity to simplify the rules.  

[DaveP043]

On 4/20/2020 at 10:08 AM, fixyurdivot said:

Anyone know the history on why we have both yellow and red stake hazards?  Also, what factors determine which color is selected? Several articles on the subject state "...their almost the same".  Perhaps I'm alone in thinking this is another opportunity to simplify the rules.  

I believe the red stakes for "lateral hazards" were introduced to address situations where there was no place to drop while keeping the entry spot between you and the hole.  You can read a bit here:

http://ruleshistory.com/hazards.html

Apparently, the definition for "lateral water hazard" didn't come into existence until 1952, although the rules at St Andrews allowed for something like the lateral hazard relief for balls that went into the water behind the 7th/11th green as early as 1858.

You can see the guidance provided as to which color to use in the Rules of Golf, under Committee Procedures, 2C(4)