The Golf Blog: TGB reader mail

Thursday, September 14, 2006

TGB reader mail

We need another Rules expert to answer this question from one of our readers:

If someone tended the pin while the partner chipped up onto the green. Is this a violation of the USGA golf rules? If so, could you stipulate which rule.

3 Comments:

At 2:09 PM, Tim Schoch said...: FUN WITH THE RULES
from southernillinoisgolf.com

A very odd situation popped up in a recent tournament at my club. It was a two person team competition. One guy had a long chip from about ten feet off the green. He told his partner to tend the pin.

(Before going further, let's get our terminology straight. The rules of golf call the stick with the flag on it the "flagstick." And we don't tend the flagstick, we "attend" it. That having been said, I prefer to write like people talk. What do you hear more often?
"Pardon me, Charles, would you kindly attend the flagstick."

Or
"Hey bonehead, tend the pin.")

My partner whispered, "Can you have the pin tended when you're off the green."

I responded "I've never seen it done before."

So with his partner holding on to the stick, the guy skulls one. He screams, "Look out!" His partner dives out of the way. The ball takes one hop, hits the pin dead center and drops three inches away. Nice par.

Something didn't seem right about that scene, but not knowing the rule, my partner and I kept our mouths shut.

A few days later our club held a seminar conducted by USGA rules official Clyde Luther. Oddly enough the guy who hit the pin with the skulled chip was in attendance, and, apparently feeling guilty, asked the first question. "Can you have the pin (yes he called it a pin) tended if you're hitting a shot from off the green?" Luther's response, "You can have it tended if you're 150 yards away, if you want, but if you hit it, it's a penalty.

The explanation:

Rule 17-3 plainly states that a player's ball must not strike: "the flagstick when it is being attended, removed or held up."

So there you have it. We all know that we must have the pin removed if it is tended while we're putting. Now we know, that if for some bizarre reason we have the pin tended while chipping or hitting any other shot from off the green, it has to be pulled after the stroke is made or we risk a penalty if, through great skill or pure luck, we hit it.

By the way, rule 17-1 tells us that if a player allows someone to stand next to the flagstick while playing a stroke, that player is allowing the pin to be attended, even though the person is not actually touching the pin.
At 2:16 PM, Anonymous said...: Not a rules violation. The flagstick can be attended at the player's request from anywhere on the course.
At 10:44 PM, calygolfing said...: This is like guy who doesn't know that honors is given to the player who is furthest from the hole, and that being on the green doesn't matter.

Did you know that you cannot stand directly behind a player when he is putting?

Or how about that you can't pick up your ball and clean it until it's on the green.

Or how about that you have to count every attempt to strike the ball even if you don't, and you don't have to count it if you acidentally strike it.

Ok, I'm tired. Anyway, sorry, but that's a rule every seasoned golfer should know.