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A friendly four-ball match. We reach a par-3, and my buddy looks to pull his 6-iron only to realize he left it on a prior hole. Another player offered up his 6 and, sure enough, my pal jars his first-ever ace. We counted it…but I’m thinking he’d normally incur a penalty, even though he only had 13 clubs in his bag at the time. For what it’s worth, he did later get back the missing club. – John Jay, Conneaut Lake, PA
An interesting question, worthy of the original John Jay, who as you no doubt know was a Founding Father, the first Chief Justice of the United States, and the second governor of New York. But we digress.
When your buddy left his club he wasn’t allowed to replace it — and even if it were a situation where he was allowed to add a club (such as when you start with less than 14 or are permitted to replace a broken club), he can’t do so by borrowing a club from someone else playing on the course, in your group or not. When you do that, it’s just like having too many clubs, which in match play is an adjustment to the state of the match (see Rule 4.1b for details).
In four-ball, that penalty applies to the whole side and not just the player in breach, per Rule 23.9. But here’s the twist: In match play, opponents have the right to overlook a breach, so while it’s unclear who was partnering with whom, kudos to your buddy’s adversaries for overlooking his breach and letting him have that first ace — and the accompanying bar tab!
For more hole-in-one-related guidance from our guru, read on …
A member at our club made an ace, then called a penalty on himself, claiming he teed the ball ahead of the marker. All this to avoid paying for drinks after the round, when tabs have reached $2,000. Was this legal? – John Karam, St. Petersburg, Fla.
The thrill of victory and the agony of… the bar tab.
Let’s say this occurred in match play. Under Rule 6.1b, which covers playing from inside the teeing area, the opponent gets to choose whether to cancel Mr. Cheap Ace’s stroke, so if that opponent prefers a free drink and losing the hole, so be it — don’t cancel the stroke and the hole in one stands.
In stroke play, once the player has called the penalty on himself, he gets two penalty strokes — but remember, the stroke into the hole now doesn’t count and the player has to correct the mistake by playing from within the teeing area (as opposed to “That’s a 1 with a 2-stroke penalty for a 3”).
If he doesn’t correct the mistake, he’s disqualified. Some might argue that a player calling a penalty to gain an advantage is antithetical to golf’s spirit, and the Committee could go the DQ route via serious misconduct under Rule 1.2a.
But the game of golf assumes honorable golfers and takes them at their word, unless there’s hard evidence to the contrary. Suspicions aren’t facts, and the “advantage” here is purely financial, not competitive — quite the contrary, since he has cost himself strokes. Maybe it seems a bit naive, but Rules Guy, for one, prefers it that way, even if it means paying for his own single-malt Scotch at the 19th hole.
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