Golfing ,landing in woods,ask for free drop on animal scraping,how do you its animal, what is ruling thanks?

Question

Golfing ,landing in woods,ask for free drop on animal scraping,how do you its animal, what is ruling thanks?

Answer 1

No free relief from animal droppings in the woods.  You can declare ball unplayable take two club lengths no closer to the hole and a one stroke penalty.

Answer 2

sorry you aint getting a free drop for that. mainly cos it aint a man made obstruction

Answer 3

My understanding is that you get relief from an animal scraping regardless of where it is.  You can drop two club lengths no nearer the hole with no penalty.  Obviously, if you are in the woods, you may be in a situation where the ball is unplayable anyway so then you would have to take a drop with a one stroke penalty.

You can identify a scraping usually by the animal droppings within it.

I had this situation when my ball came to rest in a scraping underneath a holly bush.  I took a two club length drop and scored my card for that hole both with and without the penalty shot and queried the ruling with the golf pro when I returned from my round.  He confirmed the free drop ruling and called me a lucky blighter!!

Answer 4

Don't agree. The only relief you can get, is if the scraping is made by a burrowing animal. You might remember the Seve/John Parramor conversation.

Seve (with no shot against a tree). " John, I think these are animal scrapes "

Parramor: " It looks like a dog scrape to me Seve"

Seve: "Yes, John, I agree, a dog scraping"

Parramor: " A dog is not a burrowing animal, no relief Seve"

So the answer is, if there are droppings, you can move them under the loose impediments rule-being careful not to move the ball or you will be penalised. If the ball lies in a rabbit/mole scrape whether or not it is on droppings from those animals, you can get relief-one club length no nearer the hole.However, you don't get relief from droppings not in a scrape other than the loose impediment rule quoted earlier.

Just to add, it's one club length when it's a free drop, you only get two club relief when you are dropping under penalty.