A player's approach shot curled to the left and headed toward the out-of-bounds area left of the green. The ball crossed the course boundary, hit the ground and bounced once, and then a spectator stuck out a foot and booted it. Perhaps the spectator had serious soccer skills. The ball soared high and settled near the pin. In the blink of an eye, a looming out-of-bounds penalty had turned into a birdie chance.
This is not a hypothetical. It happened during the third day of the Presidents Cup, the competition between the United States and the International team, held in September at Medinah Country Club in Illinois. The player who hit the shot was Corey Conners of Canada, a member of the International team. The incident took place on the par-4 second hole.
So what should be done in this situation? The first provision that comes to mind covers a ball in motion that accidentally hits a person or outside influence. In that case, there is no penalty to the player. If the stroke was made from anywhere other than the putting green, the ball must be played as it lies (Rule 11.1).
Does that mean the player can simply play the ball as it lies and make the birdie? No. In this case, a person deliberately changed the ball's direction. That means Rule 11.2, which covers a ball in motion deliberately deflected or stopped by a person, must be applied. If the player, the caddie or anyone else on the same side deliberately deflects the ball, the player gets the general penalty — two strokes in stroke play, loss of hole in match play. Here, because a spectator deflected the ball, there is no penalty to the player.
But the ball must not be played as it lies. Because the stroke was made from somewhere other than the putting green, the player must take relief based on the estimated point where the ball would have come to rest had it not been deflected or stopped. (If the stroke had been made on the putting green, the stroke would be cancelled and replayed.) The relief area extends one club-length from the reference point. Playing the ball as it lies without taking relief counts as playing from a wrong place and brings the general penalty.
In this case, the ball was judged to have come to rest in the out-of-bounds area had the spectator not kicked it, so the player's ball was treated as out of bounds. He therefore took a one-stroke penalty and stroke-and-distance relief.
When the player's ball is estimated to have come to rest in a penalty area, one additional relief option becomes available. The player may take penalty area relief, at a cost of one stroke, based on the estimated point where the ball last crossed the boundary of the penalty area.
If the ball is estimated to have come to rest on the putting green, it must be placed at the estimated point where it would have stopped.
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