You may have never had this happen to you – or at least never seen it happen – but it can and does occur on golf courses around the world where the fairways are shared with local wildlife and other animals that occasionally take more than a passing interest in golf balls.
Sometimes animals get a little too interested in our golf balls
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Thankfully, this is actually quite a straightforward Rules scenario. Animals or birds are considered outside influences when it comes to the Rules of Golf, with the definitions section describing an ‘outside influence’ as:
Any of these people or things that can affect what happens to a player’s ball or equipment or to the course:
• Any person (including another player), except the player or their caddie or the player’s partner or opponent or any of their caddies,
• Any animal,
• Any natural or artificial object or anything else (including another ball in motion),
except for natural forces, and
• Artificially propelled air and water, such as from a fan or irrigation system.
Our focus here is animals, whether it’s a seagull picking up a ball and making off with it, as happened to Phil Mickelson in the 2019 US Open, or a playful dog deciding it’s the perfect time for a game of fetch, as happened to Paul Casey in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Kingsbarns.
Seagulls sometimes find golf balls an attractive proposition on coastal courses in particular
(Image credit: Getty Images)
When a ball is moved by an outside influence, Rule 9.6 covers what to do next. First, it needs to be known or virtually certain that an outside influence has moved the ball and that was definitely the case for both Mickelson and Casey.
Known or virtually certain means more than just probable or possible; it means that either there is conclusive evidence that it happened, or, from all reasonable available information, it is at least 95 per cent likely that the event in question happened.
If this is the case, there is no penalty to the player and the ball must be replaced. If the exact spot isn’t known, it must be estimated (Rule 14.2). The player can also clean the ball before replacing it. Mickelson didn’t know the exact spot, but with help from a spectator and official he was able to determine the original location and…
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