We refs sometimes monitor landing zones that are soggy, hoping to help players find and take free drops for balls that become embedded in the fairway. A ref friend of mine told me the following rather quirky tale about his approaching a player who had just pulled his ball out of the muck in a stroke-play tournament.

The player cleaned his ball and was preparing to drop. My buddy, suddenly and without a word, pushed the player hard on the shoulder. The shocked player regained his balance and gasped, “What the hell are you doing?”

My friend responded, “Saving you two strokes.”

Right before the player was going to drop, he raised his foot to stomp down on the irregularity of surface caused by his removal of the embedded ball. He apparently didn’t know that doing that is a violation of Rule 13-2: Improving Lie, Area of Intended Stance or Swing, or Line of Play. (Decision 13-2/10 describes this exact case, and note that it’s also a violation of Rule 13-2 if you repair the area after your drop if doing so improves your situation.)

Fortunately, the surprise shove prevented the player from leveling the surface and from getting the resulting 2-stroke penalty. (My quick-witted friend, with virtually no time to think and even less to reason with the player, deftly transformed this otherwise rude act into one of kindness.)

Here are a couple of other things to keep in mind when dealing with an embedded ball. (The details can be found in Rule 20-1, Rule 20-2c, Rule 25-2, and Rule 25-2’s related Decisions.)

• You are not obligated to mark your embedded ball before lifting it, though you have that option. (Anytime you’re going to have to “replace” a ball you must mark it, so it does remain a good habit to get into. And at times, marking can help you determine if the ball needs to be re-dropped as well — but it’s not technically necessary to mark a ball when it is later going to be dropped.)

• You may clean your ball after lifting it.

• You must drop your ball “as near as possible to the spot where it lay” (but no closer to the hole) even though the disturbed ground there may end up causing interference for your next shot.

• If your appropriately dropped ball rolls back into the hole from which you lifted it, you must drop again and place on the valid spot it last hit the course if it rolls back in a second time. (Same thing if it stops closer to the hole than the point it embedded.)

• If your ball embeds in a new place when you drop it, you are again entitled to relief. If it embeds yet again after the next drop, place the ball as near as possible to the place it last embedded, but again, no closer to the hole.

• By the base Rule, you get free relief for embedded balls only when they are in a “closely-mown area through the green.” But there is a Local Rule that might be in force that extends the free relief to most other areas through the green — not just those that are closely-mown. (The PGA Tour regularly employs this Local Rule. See Appendix I of the Rules for more details and note that the relief does not apply if you are embedded in sand that is not in a closely-mown area.)

• Any doubt as to whether a ball is actually embedded “should be resolved against the player.”

• You may (really, should) fix the surface when you and your group are past the problem area so it doesn’t impact players in following groups.

One last thing, while you may not repair the irregularity of surface you create when you remove your ball from its embedded position, there’s nothing in the Rules which says that you can’t be extra careful when extracting it. Try to keep the surface as undisturbed as you can. It might end up helping you with your next shot.

Related

• The View from the Ref’s Side of the Fairway: An Unasked Question