Every month former MGA Senior Director of Rules and Competitions Gene Westmoreland will answer one question posed by the readers of the MGA e-Revision Newsletter (click here to sign up). Gene recently received the following Rules question from a reader:

 

Q: I was playing my second shot from a fairway bunker and the ball was at the edge of the bunker with an approximate six-inch lip. I took a good swing with my sand wedge hoping to get the ball out, but I could not follow through due to the bunker lip. The ball went straight up and as it came down I swung at it in the air and hit it to the edge of the green, I then holed out in two. What was my score for the hole?

 

Gene responds:

It sounds like you made a 5. When you made contact with your wild swipe at the ball (after it hit the lip of the bunker) you incurred a penalty stroke and were required to play the ball from wherever it came to rest. Fortunately for you the ball came to rest on the apron of the green and it sounds like you proceeded properly. Keep in mind that if your ball had ended up in a real bad spot, rather than the apron of the green, you still would lie three and be required to proceed from that "real bad spot".

 

 

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