rogolf

Just rent the whole course for the day, and pay the price!

Thanks, but I would prefer to hear from him.

Just for clarity and understanding, what are "leagues"? Are the players in these "leagues" members, non-members (member's guests) or what? Who organizes them?

Sure. But because it's touching the line, it is in the penalty area.

That's an unnecessary local Rule and the Rules of golf already say that there is no free relief for boundary objects. A useful reminder though.

Perhaps a bit pedantic, but what you have described is fourball match play, not team play. A and B are playing together as a side, not a team. Rules for team play are quite different and are in Rule 24.

The outcome is correct - two penalty strokes incurred. But the analysis is not quite right. The player breached Rule 9.4 (ball in play moved on fairway), one penalty stroke. Ball not replaced and played from the "new" place, which is playing from a wrong place (Rule 14.7) which is a penalty of two strokes. But via Rule 1.3(4), Applying Penalties to Multiple Breaches of the Rules, with no intervening event, the player gets only the higher-level penalty, ie, two strokes in this case.

"on the course" being the critical part for free relief!

By Local Rule, the stakes do not define the out of bounds, they only indicate that there is out of bounds present. The edge of the road itself defines the out of bounds. See Committee procedures 2A(1)c and d for clarification between white stakes "indicating" and "defining" out of bounds.

The paved entrance road to our club is on the left side of the first hole. We put white stakes along the course side of the road to indicate out of bounds. Out of bounds is defined as the course side of the pavement - anything on or over the road is out of bounds. There is no free relief for artificially-surfaced roads or cart paths that are not on the defined golf course.

Not all “pros” know the Rules of golf. This situation is pretty simple.

Expertise?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on where the ball and stance are located (ball could be in temp water, stance on cart path or vice versa). The player may well have a choice of which condition (temp water or cart path) to take relief from first. The careful player will check out the relief options (and the next relief options) before lifting the ball. Or, how about temp water on a cart path?

Be aware that "being in the fairway" does not guarantee a perfect lie or perfect conditions, and that "fairway" is not defined in the Rules.

We have that situation on one hole at our course and review it with the referees every time we host an event. Of course, members do it in one step every time. If I'm in the group, I do explain to my playing partners the correct procedure, but don't insist that they use it.

We had one such fellow at our course that nobody wanted to play with. A friend of mine was on the first tee one day with two of his buddies. "That guy" saw them and came rushing over to the first tee to join them. My buddy then yelled at him, "It's okay, we've already got a threesome". That guy never asked again.

I think that I've seen videos of such occurrences before, perhaps from the PGA Tour or USGA, where the referee said something like "You're with me, drop it here." Done for expediency. Ok for referees to authorize that, but not for players to do it on their own. (sui, you're back in!)

Right! Go to the next tee, "Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200" 😀

I'll accept an acknowledgement from Johnny. 🙂

Agree with iacas, no penalty. A couple things that I note in your post: - an opponent does not "call penalty". The opponent can make a request for a ruling based on the player's actions, but he cannot "call a penalty" - player is allowed to dig in with his feet when taking his stance. It's not testing. But the player is not permitted to build a stance, eg, not push sand into place to improve his stance

Also be aware of Rule 9.5 (ball lifted or moved by opponent) and Rule 9.6 (ball lifted or moved by outside influence). Shows the differences between match play (opponent) and stroke play.

In stroke (medal) play, you are correct. In match play, the person who asked or provided advice first loses the hole (same as when both players in a match play a wrong ball, first one to have played the wrong ball loses the hole).

You mentioned "match". In that situation, the orange ball is to be played first. If the owner of that ball decides that the white ball interferes with his play, he can ask the owner of the white ball to mark and lift his ball (the owner of the white ball cannot decide to do that by himself). After the orange ball has been played, if the white ball's lie has been altered, the original lie of the white ball is recreated (see Rule 14.2d).

That situation is commonly known as the "ping pong" rule.