Howdy.

During a recent round I had carried my approach shot to the back edge of the green and the ball stayed up there despite the steepish slope back towards the hole. I opted for wedge over putter for the chip back at the hole just to impart a little backspin on the downhill shot. My playing companion proceeded to remove the pin and I asked him to replace it.

He said that he would, but that I was on the green and would incur a penalty should I hole out. My ball lie on a band of grass (one mower width that outlined the putting surface) between the length of grass where the cup was and grass that was fairway length. I allowed him to remove the pin because I thought the club pro should know best. As "Murphy" would have it my insuing stroke slammed the back of the cup and continued to trickle down the green below the cup.

My understanding was that the green was defined as the grass the same length as where the cup lies, and that I should have not incurred a penalty with the pin in (had I holed out)from where I was, or is this "collar" between the green and fringe defined as part of the green?

I'm not 100% sure. Courses I play don't have that "collar", just fringe and then greenside rough. I have to believe this "collar" is treated the same as the green. If you watched the HSBC, on the last playoff hole where Sergio won, he was on the collar, not quite onto the fringe. He marked his ball and picked it up and I immediately thought "what is he doing?". I at first didn't realize it was the collar and not the fringe. It seems from this that the collar is treated as the green.

My understanding, as is yours by the sounds of it, is that the green's limit is the first change of length of the grass.

That said, if you ever play St Andrews (or a number of other links courses) you run into trouble.

You'd better ask your greenkeeper.
Ours is a big scotsman so we just go along with whatever he says.

The Rules don't explicitly talk about the fringe or collar around the green. Based on my understanding of the Rules, I don't think the fringe or collar is part of the putting green.

Putting Green
The “putting green’’ is all ground of the hole being played that is specially prepared for putting or otherwise defined as such by the Committee. A ball is on the putting green when any part of it touches the putting green.

If the grass length is different it is not on the green, if it is just mowed at a different angle, a perimeter strip, it is the green. It is common practice to mow the perimeter to give the mowers a soft edge when mowing the greens with the riding mowers so that they don't roll over the fringe. If the pro said it was green, then you could have marked and cleaned your ball, and he should have advised you not to take a divot from the green.

Hmmm. So far it's a toss up. I'm guessing it's the "committee's" decision from course to course. I guess from now on I'll just play whichever is to my advantage the first time it occurs and remain consistent throughout the round.

BTW, no divot was taken in the green/non-green. I seem to have a nack for finding portions of the green with no putting line to the cup, thus my propensity for being able to "bounce chip" from on the green leaving no more than a tiny bruise.

I seem to be in that group of people who find funny little corners of odd-shaped greens too.

I'll also admit to 'doing a Calcavecchia' on the hallowed turf of St Andrews many moons ago when I managed to hit the 5th green whilst playing the 13th and, from about 60-odd yards, into the wind, removed a slice of turf that looked like something that T J Hooker would have worn on his head. It felt like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa and I spent a good several minutes making sure that the damage was adequately repaired/disguised.

As far as I'm aware, there's no rule (other than ettiquette) that prohibits or frowns upon taking something other than a putter on the green. Large, angry scotsmen excepted...

Yes, on your own green. There are however, rules requiring a drop when your ball finds the wrong putting surface. (Unless the 5th and 13th are one large surface?)

I think he was on the fringe. But he wasss allowed to pick up his ball and mark it, because they were playing preferred lies on closely mown surfaces all day, because of the rain they had had in previous days.




They actually are. As are the 3rd and 5th, the 4th and 14th, the 6th and the 12th, the 7th and the 11th, and the 8th and the 10th.
I would dearly love to play there next year, but I must say, that I am also afraid of the possibilty of wayward shots hitting me unexpectedly in the back of the head, because they actually didn't come from somebody on the same hole, but rather from somebody missing his part of the "shared" green.

As for the original question: the fringe is the first noticeably longer cut around the green, usually cut like the fairways. No marking and picking up the ball there (under normal rules).

The eccentricities of St Andrews mean that only four greens are 'single' greens - the 1st, 9th, 17th and 18th. All the rest are shared. The 5th/13th is probably the biggest of the lot and, in my defence, I reckon the putt I faced was decent sand wedge into the teeth of a howling gale. Even a decade or more later I feel bad about it...