In Golf Digest's most recent magazine, there was a rules quiz. One of the scenarios was, "A golfer marks his ball near the hole after three shots. He replaces his ball and lifts his mark. A gust of wind blows and the ball roles in the hole." Golf Digest said that it was okay to take a three on the hole.

Is it just me or does something not sound right there?

Does sound weird - but its correct (I think). Wind is not considered "an outside agent". So as long as the person didn't address the ball, or do anything else to move it, s/he didn't make a stroke.

(Note that this also applies in the opposite direction ... if you put the ball down, lift your mark, and the wind blows the ball away from the hole ... even if it winds up catching a hill and rolling off the green ... that's where you play it from).

Isn't there a rule that if the ball does not move for ten seconds, and then moves, there is a penalty?

i would agree that the score for the hole would be 3,,same if the ball rolled off the green and into a lake, after placing it back down.
You would have to play the ball with the stroke pen for going into the lake if you could not play it as it lied.

That's the ball hanging on lip situation.

Different.

gotcha

Yeah .... that's the ten second rule (you can wait ten seconds after walking up to the cup to wait for a ball hanging on the lip to drop ... technically, the kid in Caddyshack lost ... )

haha i noticed that too

its not really a penalty, per-say. wrather, the assumption is that the player would have to use another stroke in order to hit the ball in the hole if it stays on the lip for longer than the time it takes the player to walk to the hole, plus 10 seconds. therefore a stroke is added to the score on the hole.

no: it's actually a penalty. you have a reasonable amount of time to get to the hole plus ten seconds. you have to count it in your head (or on your fingers, aloud, if you prefer). there is no way the rules of golf are going to say anything like "it should take another stroke, so add that stroke, even if the ball goes in."

here's the best part. if you wait 12 seconds and the ball drops and you pick it out of the hole and merrily go along your way, you are going to be signing for a wrong score at the end of the day, unless you add the penalty. but it is a curious rule in a game filled with them, since, if you wait too long and the ball falls, you just add the penalty, and the previous putt is considered to have been holed out, so you don't replace the ball and then putt out. i think the previous poster was making this point, but he or she mistakenly suggested this wasn't a rule, when it is (16-2.)

yeah thats kind of a weird situation.

I think what they had meant was that is wouldn't be above and beyond what you would've scored if you tapped in right away.

E.g. tap in would make a 4....you don't all of a sudden make a 5 if the ball falls in after 10s.

So yes technically a penalty, but since you don't have to replace and putt out, it's not a penalty in the sense that you now card a score bigger than what you would've normally.

oh no, I know its a rule. but saying its a "penalty" insinuates that the player broke a rule. instead, a "penalty" stroke is added, but the player isn't being "penalized", wrather, the assumed stroke that would put the ball in the hole is added to the score, and is thus reffered to as a "penalty" stroke.

hbear, that's exactly right, but it seems very bizarre to me that this would be on the books this way. it's the only rule i can imagine in golf that does not have an actual penalty and remark/replay as part of the consequences for not abiding by it. you should, by any understanding of the rules, have to pick it out of the hole, remark it, and replay the stroke, under penalty of one. the only reason i can see for this oddity is that so many of the rules of golf have as their end point some version of the phrase "the hole is deemed completed once the ball goes in the cup," (those crazy rules like if you think you're in a hazard or you think you've lost the ball but it's actually in the cup) that the USGA does not want to contravene this edict that the hole has to be over with the ball in the cup.

i'm about to look it up anyway, but it strikes me that the following scenario would have to contravene this edict anyway: if, in making a practice stroke, you inadvertantly hit the ball and holed out, you would have to pick the ball out of the hole, remark from where you hit it, take a stroke, and then play on. the ball is in the hole, but the hole isn't over. i don't see how you could take one stroke penalty and pick it up and go on in that situation, so why is this different?

the thing i don't like about this rule, of course, is that if you had a windy and a severe downslope or something and left one on the lip that you knew would have to drop eventually, you don't actually lose anything by standing there for a minute, assuming your ball does eventually blow in the hole, even when you are breaking a rule.

i wonder if there are volleyball or cricket sites where people discuss fairly minor rules at this length? i'll check on that too.

Two years ago in a local tournament on a short par 3 sloped severely a players ball ended up above the hole. He marked the ball. When it was his turn, he replaced the ball, lifted his mark and proceeded to walk around to see the line from the other side. The ball began moving on its own and went in the hole. The club contacted the USGA. The ruling: Ace!

Wow! That would be a neat way to make a hole-in-one.

no, no it wouldn't! thats kind of like barry bonds' record. . .it'll always have an (asterisk) next to it.