Rules

Playing Ball On An Island

Chris Wallace, Rules manager at The R&A, reflects on an incident during the final round of the Hero Open at the Forest of Arden, where Swede Joel Sjoholm almost found himself all at sea with an interesting Rules situation.

After a wayward second shot to the par-5 17th hole, Sjoholm’s ball ended up on an island within a red penalty area to the right of the green. However, confident that his ball had found dry land, rather than simply taking a penalty drop under Rule 17 (most likely lateral relief within two club-lengths of the point where the ball last crossed the edge of the penalty area, no closer to the hole), he instead opted to set sail in search of his ball using a small boat to cross the water.

There is nothing within the Rules that would prohibit the use of a boat to get across the water in this situation, with the biggest risk to the player seemingly being the potential