April 2025 - Rules from the Tours
The 2025 golf season is fast approaching in the northern hemisphere and many golfers will be exchanging watching the world best golfers from their sofa to testing their own games out on the course. The professional tours have continued to excite viewers with Rory McIlroy recently winning The Players Championship in a three-hole Monday play-off, Richard Mansell and Mimi Rhodes winning their first DP World Tour and Ladies’ European Tour events respectively and fan favourites Lydia Ko and Viktor Hovland also securing wins. Let’s take a look at some rulings you may have heard about, and one or two that you may not have come across.
JJ Spaun, The Players Championship 2025, TPC Sawgrass
JJ Spaun narrowly missed out on winning The Players Championship but one talking point from his final round came at the 9th hole when his second shot came to rest in a collar of deep rough. When Spaun took his stance to get a feel for his shot, he found he was standing on a sprinkler head, which under the Rules of Golf is defined as an immovable obstruction. The Rules allowed Spaun to take free relief by finding his nearest point of complete relief in the general area and drop within one club-length of that point, no nearer the hole (Rule 16.1).After taking complete relief from that sprinkler head, Spaun then had interference from a second sprinkler head. As this was considered to be a new situation, Spaun followed the same procedure to take relief from the second sprinkler head. This time the Rules of Golf gave the player a favourable break as part of his relief area was now in a much shorter cut of grass within the general area.When taking free relief, your nearest point of complete relief will not always be to your liking and you may be better to play the ball as it lies, rather than taking the available relief, but sometimes knowing the Rules and paying attention to all your options can help you to save a stroke or two.For more information on how to take free relief from an abnormal course condition, watch the following video:
