What would be the ruling?

Having a decent round on Sunday I reached our 16th hole. After a bit of a leaky drive my 2nd shot found a green side bunker, it didn't just find the bunker it managed to find itself more or less tucked UNDER a not very well maintained lip. In retrospect I should have taken an unplayable but I got sucked into "having a go" So...Whump!! Into the sand the club went and up popped the ball, right in front of my eyes...I could swear at one point I could read 'chrome soft' as it seemed to hover just inches from my head. I desperately tried to dive out of the way in a sort of pirouetting limbo action but ended up sprawled in the sand flat on my back, legs akimbo. As I gathered myself, one of my sympathetic playing partners managed to contain his sniggers long enough to tell me that the ball had caught my leg on the way down (I was too preoccupied trying to negotiate a safe landing to feel it but I took his word for it so a 2 shot penalty and an eventual 8.

As the story was regaled one guy pipes up (given that the ball remained in the bunker after the first attempt)...when you fell did you ground your club? Couldn't rolling about in the sand be construed as testing the ground in a hazard? As it happened the sand wedge got helicoptered clear as I was going down as there was a real danger of me falling on it/breaking it.

So, if the club had stayed attached to me in the bunker, would it have been construed as grounding in a hazard or would it all have been classed as still part of the first attempt to get out?

It's OK to ground the club when you have hit a shot (unless you are trying to improve the next lie in some way). If you lost control of the club and it bounced or spun away (or you threw it) then clearly there's no attempt to improve the lie, so 8 is the correct score. Unfortunately.

Trying shots like that is what separates the smart players from hackers. Or at least that is where I reckon super will go with this.

I was surprised to find out last week that it's now only a one shot penalty.

SmithersJones wrote:I was surprised to find out last week that it's now only a one shot penalty.

What is a one shot penalty?

Ball deflected by player or his equipment. http://www.randa.org/Rules-of-Golf/MainRules/19-Ball-in-Motion-Deflected-or-Stopped/SubRules/2-By-Player-Partner-Caddie-or-Equipment

When you ground a club after an unsuccessful attempt to get out of a hazard isn't there also an exemption if you think you're in danger of hurting yourself or falling over or something ?  I remember Michelle wie once argued that she shouldn't be penalized because like she was like afraid of like slipping and like getting her clothes dirty.   Replay showed her simply leaning briefly on her club in the hazard, so she got nowhere.  If she'd pirouetted maybe it would have been a different story.

McLaren wrote:Trying shots like that is what separates the smart players from hackers.  Or at least that is where I reckon super will go with this.

I've taken on silly shots like that Mac. Once in an Open at Elie I took 6 or 7 to get out of a bunker, just kept thinking that I'd get out with the next one, but each lie got progressively worse.

Taught me a good lesson though and I don't tend to take on stupid hollywood shots from bunkers now. Rather take a drop in the bunker and get a better lie.