The Idea Blog

I came across a blurb in the April 5 Golfweek about a penalty leading to disqualification for Stewart Cink at the Zurich Classic.

“During Saturday’s third round, Cink played his second shot at the par-4 15th from a fairway bunker. His approach found a greenside bunker, and Cink’s caddie dutifully raked his boss’ tracks from the second shot.

“Before Sunday’s round, Cink became concerned, after talking to Zach Johnson, that he had ‘tested a like surface’ - a violation that carries a two-stroke penalty - by his caddie raking the fairway bunker before Cink hit his shot from the greenside bunker.

“Cink asked a rules official and discovered five holes into his final round his week was over for signing an incorrect scorecard.

“‘This is nothing new. It was discussed by the Rules of Golf Committee in February, and it will continue to be discussed,’ said David Hayes of the USGA’s rules department. ‘A player cannot test a similar hazard.’”

Excuse me, but the rule (13-4, in the Rules of Golf) as I’ve always played it is that the same bunker is a “like surface,” but that another bunker is not. If Cink’s situation is the current interpretation, then it is seemingly at odds with this “exception”:

3. If the player makes a stroke from a hazard and the ball comes to rest in another hazard, Rule 13-4a does not apply to any subsequent actions taken in the hazard from which the stroke was made.

I figure now I’ll have to retroactively report myself to virtually every tournament official and pay back every wager from my golf history.

UPDATE: I sent a link to this post to my friend Derek Granfield, whom I consider to be a rules expert. He responded that had Cink’s ball been in the bunker, the exception is right on. “However this situation was different, and exception 3 does not apply. When he hit his ball, he was standing in a hazard, but the ball was NOT in the hazard. So when the caddie raked the bunker he was standing in, he theoretically was testing a similar bunker that Cink was about to hit from. So Rule 13–4 applies in this situation.”

I only thought I knew what I was talking about.

UPDATE 2 (April 12): According to Golfweek, the hazard rule was “tweaked” this week with an new interpretation, “one of the quickest revisions to a U.S. Golf Association rules position in recent memory.”

“The USGA was scheduled to release a new interpretation of Rule 13-4 this week that is to state, in essence, that no penalty should be incurred in certain circumstances by a player (or player’s caddie) who rakes a different bunker than the one from which the player is about to play his or her next shot.”