By Paul Gueorgieff
Editor, Golfer Pacific NZ

I am amazed.

We received a question from Bay of Plenty golf referee Patrick Thomas for our rules guru Dave Mangan of New Zealand Golf to answer.

I skimmed over Patrick’s question and duly fired it off to Dave, without giving it much further thought.

It was not until I received the reply, which appears in the Ask Dave column in this issue of Golfer Pacific, that I started to question what I was reading.

My first thoughts were, surely not? I again read Dave’s answer and thought, you must be kidding?

I went to the rules’ section of The Royal & Ancient website to seek further clarification. (Sorry Dave if I doubted your answer).

But sure enough there it was in black and white. 

Patrick’s question was regarding the local rule of lift, clean and place, which usually applies only to your own fairway.

Patrick pointed out that you no longer have to mark your ball before lifting, cleaning and placing.

I will repeat that. You do not have to mark your ball for lift, clean and place.

One more time. You do not have to mark your ball for lift, clean and place.

Most often relief of six inches, or sometimes a club length, is allowed when the lift, clean and place rule is in operation. 

So let’s say lift, clean and place is in play and six inches relief is allowed. 

You are on the fairway and you pick up your ball without marking it, you clean the ball as allowed and then ... 

Where do you put the ball? 

The only requirements are that the ball is not put back closer to the hole and it is within six inches of where it was.

But where was it? 

You didn’t mark it because you don’t have to mark it. You haven’t broken any rule.

This is where the imagination starts to run wild. 

What could this lead to? Are names of players suddenly popping into your head?

I am thinking of hot summer conditions when lift, clean and place might be in operation on one of the fairways because the grass has been burnt off. 

You are allowed six inches relief but the fairway is bare except for that nice little tuft of grass, that is perhaps eight inches away.

You pick up the ball, without marking it, walk a couple of strides to clean the ball with the towel attached to your golf bag and then walk back to assess where to replace the ball.

So where was the ball again, you mentally ask yourself. I am sure it was within six inches of that nice little tuft of grass, you mentally try to tell yourself.

I’ll leave the next bit of what you actually do to answer for yourself.