Greg61568
Oct 28 2013, 01:15 AM
Both of these came up recently. Whille putting inside the circle (during a game among friends/ fellow league members), I wrapped my leg around a tree behind me and putted. I maintained balance, held the stance for a couple seconds, slowly let my leg down and picked up my marker. I've done this before due to frequently finding myself in that place on that hole (and others) and finding that stance to be the best for my purposes. I maintain balance and control every time. However another player questioned the legality of it. I was wondering what the legality was.

Secondly, up here in Alaska we have a lot of thick brush. We play leagues (and sanctioned tournaments) on courses where the brush is not OB and almost every player will find their way in at some point in the day. Yesterday, a player on my card was in the thick stuff. He marked the lie, and then walked backwards to it (which was the only real way to get his foot settled behind the mini.) He HAD to flex back some branches with his body to get himself into the lie. I know this because he was my dubs partner and after seeking alternate routes and exhausting other ideas, I had to do the same thing. This seems to be something that comes up regularly. Players must lean backwards into this brush and compress it to get a stance on a legal and playable lie. Very rarely will any of the vegetation snap or be damaged. What's the legality of this? Incidentally compressing/bending/flexing branches to stand on your legal and playable lie?

krupicka
Oct 28 2013, 08:39 AM
The first is covered in the Rules Q&A. Legal

Greg61568
Oct 28 2013, 10:16 AM
Yeah, I was pretty confident in my understanding of the rules on the first part regarding support behind the lie. But the bigger cause of contention was the compression/flexing of vegetation to reach/stand on your lie.

krupicka
Oct 28 2013, 10:32 AM
The principle is "least movement". Is that the least movement to be able to play the lie? If you cannot get to it without backing into it and moving the brush that was in front of your lie behind your lie, then I would contend that you should play as close as possible behind your lie using the same relief as you would use for a solid obstacle. (802.03F) In my opinion that would be the best extension of the rules in this circumstance.

jconnell
Oct 28 2013, 12:38 PM
You can't back into branches such that your body is pinning them back out of their original position as you make your throw. The least movement possible is no movement. Movement of the foliage to get into a stance is okay, but it has to allow for any moved branches to return to their "natural" position before the stance is legal.

iacas
Oct 28 2013, 01:27 PM
You can't back into branches such that your body is pinning them back out of their original position as you make your throw. The least movement possible is no movement. Movement of the foliage to get into a stance is okay, but it has to allow for any moved branches to return to their "natural" position before the stance is legal.

Obviously there are limits to that - your body will be in the way of some of the "natural" positions of the branches/foliage. That affects not only the stuff that is in the 3D space of your body, but things outside that space that project through that space.

That's not to say you can't crouch, stand very tall, stand stretched out to the side, etc. "Least" doesn't mean "none" (I'm not saying that's what you said).

Greg61568
Oct 28 2013, 08:53 PM
There are some good points here. I think I need to just go back to this course and take a picture of the scenario to clarify the sutuation. Moving the lie backwards on the line of play just gets you deeper and deeper into thicker vegetation. We both ended up with a stance that had some of the branches in front of us, some incidentally behind, and others sticking us in the ribs as we nearly did the splits. Some of the brush we have to deal with here is just insane. Obviously the other option is a stroke and a drop, but naturally that would be very last option pursued. Another option would be for the Director to name this OB or declare that casual relief would be available (this stuff wasn't as bad as the devil's club we have everywhere, but still it's nasty and could be declared "dangerous;" someone could scratch a cornea, suffer a laceration, etc. I guess I should make this question simpler - where is the limit of how much your body can interact with vegetation? Maybe it's a case-by-case to be determined by an official.

krupicka
Oct 29 2013, 08:02 AM
It really should be a best attempt at least movement. The rule is intentionally vague as it is impossible to handle the nuances of the flora at different courses across the country.

drumin5216
Oct 29 2013, 04:27 PM
A lot of gray areas like this seem to come from less than perfect course design. Clearing out that brush/privet or the TD declaring it as OB or casual relief would cause your question to be moot because then you would not have a lie in the brush in the first place.