First of all:
THERE ARE NO SUCH TERMS IN THE RULES OF GOLF AS "LINE OF SIGHT" OR "LINE OF FLIGHT"!
I spent a lifetime trying to get people to stop using those terms. It is one of my pet peeves.
AJBrown has quoted the rule correctly.
That being said, I saw the situation, but I really wasn't paying attention. I was doing something else and the television was on in the background.
According to the story to which AJBrown posted a link, the ball was deemed to be in a
lateral water hazard.
Brad Alexander, an official, was incorrect in that article. When a ball in in a lateral hazard, the player has two
additional options under the rules. The options of a crossing water hazard are still available to the player and I believe that is what the player proceeded under.
Quote:
|
c. As additional options available only if the ball last crossed the margin of a lateral water hazard, drop a ball outside the water hazard within two club-lengths of and not nearer the hole than (i) the point where the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard or (ii) a point on the opposite margin of the water hazard equidistant from the hole.
|
As I said, I wasn't really paying attention. I did hear a bit if Stacy Lewis' complaint and discussion with the official and saw the video of the official using the range finder and giving the player a yardage. Her main complaint that, I heard, was that the official gave the player a yardage before she played.
I don't know why they would have been measuring yardage in this particular instance as the only relevance that distance to the hole has in this situation is hat the ball cannot be dropped closer to the hole than the point where it last crossed the margin of that hazard. That point could have easily been determined, as it had been done for two hundred years before the invention of the rang finder, without all that measuring.
There didn't seem to be any need for the official to be well to the left of the hazard, in the middle of the fairway, measuring distances.
Like I said, I wasn't there and really didn't pay that much attention to it, but based on what I know this official screwed up.
But, the bottom line here is that under the rules of golf the decision of an official, even if incorrect, stands. It would be very unfair to penalize a player for proceeding under an official's direction.