Out of bounds or in bounds?

[ukgolfer]

when playing the championship courses how do you determine when your ball is in bounds or out of bounds?......

I know the official rule is "When stakes are used to define out of bounds, these stakes should be painted white. The out of bounds line is determined by the nearest inside points of the stakes at ground level"....but I have found that the sometimes the stakes are what I would say in the garden of a home and I dont like to go and play my shot off somebody's lawn....when playing in the Villages I have always used the difference in the grass from the golf course to a lawn as the guide of out of bounds line, myself and our regular playing partners just say "its a villages rule".....(its sometimes to your benefit and sometimes to your disadvantage).....this did cause a problem once with somebody playing with us who was new to the villages...on any courses that we play in the uk we do use the official rule...but we dont have courses set up like the villages?

[mickey100]

Picture a line drawn between each of the white stakes. That is the official out of bounds line. The difference in the grasses is only a rough approximation and is limited by where the big mowers can go. In a tournament you would go by the line between the white stakes, and in the groups I play with, that is the definition that we use, not how the grass is cut. There are also local rules indicated on the scorecard which may be a fence or an adjacent road indicating OB.

[batman911]

The white stakes are always on golf course property so no problem playing your ball near the stakes. If your ball is beyond the stakes (OB) then I would not retreive it if I had to enter someones private property.

[ukgolfer]

cheers for that I will have to get over the guilt of thinking I am hitting off somebody's lawn....is it bad form to stand on the lawn to hit your ball if the ball is just in bounds and your stance requires you to stand on the lawn to line up your shot?

[BarryRX]

cheers for that I will have to get over the guilt of thinking I am hitting off somebody's lawn....is it bad form to stand on the lawn to hit your ball if the ball is just in bounds and your stance requires you to stand on the lawn to line up your shot?
Yes, it is bad form! If you haven't been invited onto the property, you shouldn't enter it. I don't know if the rules allow for relief in this case.

[ajbrown]

cheers for that I will have to get over the guilt of thinking I am hitting off somebody's lawn....is it bad form to stand on the lawn to hit your ball if the ball is just in bounds and your stance requires you to stand on the lawn to line up your shot?

AFAIK, the rules of golf do not understand bad form :), so we have to use common sense. I assume you are talking about a situation where my ball is in bounds, but I would have to stand in the edge of someones yard (out of bounds) to swing . The odds of this are pretty slim..... it seems if my ball gets near the line it leaps out :ohdear:

To me, the determining factor is that I not affect the persons property in any way, e.g., standing in plantings, swing damaging anything on their property, divot flying into yard, etc. If my shot would do any damage to the person's property, it would make taking the shot completely out of the question. I would then ask my 'buddies' for a rules decision :pray:.

I wonder if there is a local rule in a circumstance where your have a clear swing but would break an off property flower on your follow through? For the rules of golf it would be a slippery slope, but mighty neighborly.

[ronat1]

Yes, it is bad form! If you haven't been invited onto the property, you shouldn't enter it. I don't know if the rules allow for relief in this case.

If only people walking their dogs would use this logic, consideration and etiquette. I know I shouldn't have but it just has to be stated.