Linda,
I was driving the cart and my dad is the passenger. We are
looking for his ball in the fairway but the sun is in our eyes and there are leaves
all over the fairway. He has a match with another player in our group and I
accidentally run over my dad's ball. It becomes embedded and I said he could
replace it, no penalty, but the other guy said his equipment was on the cart,
therefore the cart was part of his equipment and it should be a one-shot
penalty. I said he was just a fellow golfer (we were not partners) and I was
looking for his ball. My dad took the penalty and I was sick about it. Who was
right?
Lou from Gaffney, South Carolina
Dear Lou,
Let’s take a look at the Definition of “Equipment.” It
states: “If a shared golf cart is being moved by one of the players sharing it
(or his partner or either of their caddies), the cart and everything in it are
deemed to be that player’s equipment.” Accordingly, since you were driving the cart when you ran over your dad’s ball, the
cart was your equipment, not his. Your
dad does not incur a penalty, since the equipment (cart) was not his and you
were not his partner. Since the original lie was altered (the cart pushed the
ball into the ground), and the original lie was on the fairway, he was required
to place it on the fairway just outside the embedded depression, no closer to
the hole [Rule 20-3b].
If you had been your dad’s partner, he would have incurred a
one-stroke penalty, and he would have had to replace the ball [Rule 18-2].
Linda
Copyright © 2017 Linda Miller. All rights reserved.
