Ground under Repair

The Indian Golf union recently conducted one of their categorized junior tournaments in Clover Greens. Clover Greens has the ideal topography for a golf course. It is technically situated in Tamil Nadu, but we held our Karnataka Juniors there! Competition was limited and there were only about 45 players. Amalraj won his first title. The tournament did not have many rules incidents, except for a tricky ruling to be given on the final day. On the short par 4, 17th hole most of the players were cutting the dog leg to the right to go for the green. But, the green was protected by well placed bunkers. One of the boys from last 4 batches, landed his ball in the bunker. His ball was in a difficult lie created by the negligence of the green staff. They have trimmed the grass on the wall of the bunker and left a channel of sand in the bottom corner of the bunker. They have neglected to level the channel with sand. The player asked for a free relief. One of the few discretion a referee has is to declare a badly and unusual damaged area(even if not marked) as GUR ( decreed by Decision 33-2a/2.) I studied the situation and concluded that the damage was not excessive or extensive to declare the area as GUR, especially in a bunker. I denied relief to the player and he played a decent shot from the difficult lie. While this matter was settled, I was concerned about the following groups who may land in the same situation. I consulted the Tournament Director if we could tidy up the bunker. The tournament director told me to make my call. I noticed that the adjacent bunker was also in the same condition. I had no information how many other bunkers were in the same condition. I decided not to repair the bunker as will not be a level playing field for the majority of the players who have already concluded the hole. As it happened, another player in one of the leading groups landed almost in the same area in the bunker. I have to be consistent with my ruling and denied the requested relief. Regarding referee’s discretion to declare GUR, the normal protocol followed is to ensure that not many players in the earlier groups have landed in the same area. Also, we cross check with other officials if any player has been denied/given relief. If the area warrants to be declared as GUR and relief is given to one player, the rules official will ensure that it is immediately marked as GUR.