At the 2011 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, Phil Mickelson needed an eagle on the 72nd hole to tie with Bubba Watson. He was forced to lay up on the par-5 18th and then had 72 yards to the pin. It had to go in.
He paced up to the flag and then had his caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay tend the flag as he played a wedge shot into the green. He wanted it to have two chances to go in, he thought it could possibly spin back into the cup and would have more chance of going in if the flag was out. It was quite a time-consuming performance but a possible victory was on the line. And Phil proved it wasn’t a crazy idea when he played his wedge shot to within a couple of feet of the hole. It didn’t go in though, and he just missed out.
As that story shows then, yes, you can have the flagstick attended or remove the flagstick before any stroke whether that stroke is being played on the putting surface or from some other place.
The question is, unless you were in the situation of Phil Mickelson, and you were Phil Mickelson, then why would you want to?
The flagstick is a useful guide to aim at. It’s more difficult to play an accurate shot towards the hole if you remove the indicator of where that hole is positioned.
There may be circumstances when a collection area on a green could gather the ball towards the hole and you might feel it more likely that you would hole out if the pin weren’t there. If you knew where you wanted to land the ball then perhaps you would consider having the flagstick removed.
One thing you would have to be conscious of though is Rule 5.6a which covers Unreasonable Delay of Play. If you were looking at a par-3 hole and felt you’d rather have the pin out, you might be in breach of this Rule if it takes you five minutes to walk down and back to the green before playing your shot. If you were removing the flag on each hole and doing that, you’d definitely be delaying play unreasonably. The penalty for the first breach of that Rule is one-stroke, the second breach is the General Penalty of two shots and on the third breach you’d be disqualified.
So, can you remove the flagstick on any shot? Yes. But you can’t be overly slow about it and really, why would you want to?
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