Marcel Siem's unplayable at the 18th...

First topic message reminder :

In case you didn't see it yesterday, Marcel Siem hit a rank approach shot into the 18th and ended up about 20 yards left of the green, underneath a bush. He rather hastily declared the ball unplayable and measured 2 club lengths backwards/sideways. To the bemusement of the commentators, he then - twice - deliberately dropped his ball onto a rock so that both times the ball pinged off and came to rest outside the 2 club length boundary. Accordingly, he was then required to place the ball where it had contacted the ground...on the rock. Under the watchful eye of John Paramor, Siem tried to place the ball on the rock, and of course it rolled off. So he then had to place the ball at the nearest available spot, which was right behind the rock. "Oh no", came the commentators response. "That wasn't well thought out...now what's he going to do?". Answer, move the rock as a loose impediment and give yourself a perfect lie.

Now, in this case the "lie" wasn't perfect because there was a tree in his swing, and his resulting steep shot came off the hosel, shot left and rather luckily hit the crowd and bounced toward the green. Had the crowd not been there, it looked like he was heading for even bigger troubles. He made it up and down from there for a double. But in other circumstances, the tree wouldn't be there and a massive advantage is gained.

Now Marcel Siem did nothing illegal here - everything he did was allowed under the rules. But deliberately or not, he managed to "expose" some slight flaws in the rules...or at least, that's my opinion.

Firstly, should a player be allowed to deliberately drop the ball onto an object - such a a rock - in order to make sure the ball doesn't come to rest in the designated area, thus allowing him to place the ball for a decent lie? Doesn't this take the "randomness" out of the equation?

Secondly, having dropped onto that object, should that same object be allowed to be removed from the equation as if it never existed? Basically, he used the rock to his advantage when dropping and then removed it when it was a problem in his shot. That's having your cake and eating it, right?

For unplayable lie's, there are 3 options;

- play a ball from where the last shot was played, or
- drop a ball any distance behind the point where the ball lay keeping a straight line between the hole, the point where the ball lay and the spot on which the ball is dropped, or
- drop a ball within two club-lengths of where the ball lies not nearer the hole

I must say that i am not a fan of the 3rd option here (controversial, but just my opinion). For me this can too often offer an easy "get out of jail" option. Yes, you get penalised a stroke, but you can take yourself from a nightmare spot under a bush, against a root in 3ft deep rough to a nice, clean, soft lie with an full swing. Yes, you could argue that this is also the case with option 2, but generally the unplayable is taken because of a tree, a bush, a rock etc, and at least with option 2 that hazrad is still partly in play. For me i think i'd prefer to see just option 1 and 2 on offer.

Any thoughts?

D4S and MPB - you vehemently defend Siem for cleverly staying within the rules, then contradict yourselves by saying Tigers "loose impediment" rule might need to be changed and that his OOB ruling at Firestone was "odd". By your original reasoning, Tiger should be applauded for his quick thinking!

Eldest

Tiger's situation wasn't quite the same as Siem's as he simply found himself behind a rock and asked if he could have it removed. There was no real quick thinking but fair play to him all the same. I'm much more impressed though by Siem's thinking, if in fact he knew what he was doing!

On a seperate note i wonder if the definition of a loose impediment needs clarification as Tiger's boulder wasn't exactly loose

No contrdiction

Eldest

See MPB's comments above. Tiger's situation was completely different, he gained an advantage over the rest of the field because of the size of crowds following him. Agreed, he didn't break or bend any rules but if that had happened to some struggling journeyman with nobody following, they would have had to chip out sideways and take an extra shot.

I believe the "boulder the size of a house" description as a loose impediment has been amended by the PGA Tour. Not sure what the exact wording is, but don't expect to see that again.