RULE 31-6

I was playing a stroke play competition last month, on the first green my one of the competitors, Wahab Dollah discovered he had 15 clubs in his bag. How does it effect both stroke play and in a stableford fourball?

As Wahab discovered that he was carrying 15 clubs during play of the first hole in stroke play he incurred a penalty of two strokes (Rule 4-4). If it was during play of the second, or any other hole, a maximum penalty of four strokes would have been incurred. Rule 31-6 confirms that in a four-ball stroke play competition the side is penalised for a breach of Rule 4.

For the way this is applied in a Stableford competition Note 1 to Rule 32-1b states,
Note 1: If a competitor is in breach of a Rule for which there is a maximum penalty per round, he must report the facts to the Committee before returning his score card; if he fails to do so, he is disqualified.

Of course, once a player discovers that he started with 15 clubs he also has to declare which one he is taking out of play and if he subsequently uses this club during the round he is disqualified. If either player in a four-ball is disqualified under Rule 4 the penalty applies to his partner as well (Rule 31-7).”

Posted by @pgabsec on 7:33 PM. Filed under Rules In Action .You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0