GM regulars Fergus Bisset and Jeremy Ellwood debate whether a fully flooded bunker or a road classed as an integral object presents the harsher ‘no free relief’ scenario.
‘No Free Relief’ Scenarios – Is Flooded Bunker Or Integral Road Harsher?
Flooded bunker
says Fergus Bisset
To start with, I should say I’m very much in favour of bunkers being proper hazards. The flat, perfectly manicured ‘traps’ like we often see on the PGA Tour are a haven for reasonable players rather than a tricky challenge as they should be. Although bunkers should be penal, one should have a chance to escape from them without penalty.
When a bunker is totally flooded, with no place whatsoever to take relief within it, a penalty drop is the only option. This is extremely harsh as far as I’m concerned and particularly when the bunker in question is greenside. Imagine the scenario; in challenging conditions (it likely will be for bunkers to be flooded), you play a reasonable shot into a green. But it falls fractionally short and finds sand. Not a disaster, up and down for a gritty par. But you walk up to find your ball stranded in a temporary swimming pool.
If there’s nowhere in the bunker to drop not nearer the hole, you’ll have to drop out under penalty
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Not only are you forced to take a penalty drop, but you’ll also still likely face a testing up-and-down to save bogey, possibly even having to play back across the watery grave you’ve just fished your ball from. That seems way too harsh. Bunkers are not penalty areas – they are supposed to provide a stiff golfing challenge but, if they’re flooded, my view is you should be entitled to free relief.
A road classed as an integral object road may put a scuff on your 7-iron, but a competent player can purposefully catch the ball a little thin and limit the damage – at least they can make progress without penalty.
Find a road classed as an integral object and you have a chance to escape without hurting your score; find a totally flooded bunker and you don’t. The latter must be golf’s harshest ‘no free relief’ scenario.
‘No Free Relief’ Scenarios – Is Flooded Bunker Or Integral Road Harsher?
Road classed as integral object
says Jeremy Ellwood
One or two Rules of Golf seem to give us a bit of a hard time – quite literally in the case of the roads or pathways that a tiny minority of committees choose to class as ‘integral objects’ for some unfathomable reason. If you’re on it, you either play it…
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