Aust Golf Digest award to reader in current issue for suggesting the Rules be changed to give relief from divots on the fairways.May be a long time coming but raises other issues like bare patches which have not been repaired or marked as GUR whole question of unfair lies v play it as it lies proponents.

First problem is What is the definition of a Divot , & when dose a divot stop being a divot & become a bit of fairway again.
I believe introducing a rule to give relief from divots would be opening a can of worms that no rules officials would want anything to do with.
I believe this should stay in the too hard basket.

I think it is a crap rule when a perfectly hit drive can leave you in a position where you have to hack out of a sand filled divot. Its not fair, i dont see how dropping a ball on the fairway gives an unfair advantage. A shot that lands on the fairway should be rewarded with a good lie, not a skanky lie. I have hit great drives b4, and got down there to find my ball sunk down in a divot. This makes you have to chop down on the ball and can result in a crap shot. I think the rule should be changed, at least for sand filled divots.

I sympatrhize with your point & agree that it is a little unfair but the problem remains. How much grass do you have to have growing in an old sand filled divot before it stops being a divot & relief is no longer available. As an x club captain I really do not wish to see the day that a rule is introduced giving relief from divots. There are enough headaches noiw interpreting the rules without adding a rule like this. Just my humble opinion.

the only way it would work is to just allow drops or preferred lie any time the ball lands on the fairway

I am a hacker and a chopper at the best of times, but i love playing even when i really suck.
i dont play comps….mainly to save better players having to put up with me, so i rarely “play for cattle stations”
So this gives me some leeway in how i play my game…. i play for fun, pure and simple.
i dont cheat or shave off strokes…but wouldnt play out of a repaired divot. This is more so im not creating further damage to a spot that is under repair.
WHY???? because while im still a hacker, i dont see why the course should suffer when im not playing for cattle stations just to comply with strict rules.
i hope that in doing things like this it helps the courses i play stay in better condition that if i followed rules to the letter and played from filled divots,choppy ground,bare patches trying to grow grass etc….
call me on it if u want, but i think there are more choppers out there for fun than people who will nit-pick rules just for a fun round of golf…....unless theres a slab riding on it

Yes its a tough break when you wind up in a divot or a crappy lie for that matter. The element of luck is one of the real features of our game. If you can learn to take bad breaks in your stride you will be a much better player in the long run.

There is no hope that the rule on this is ever going to change. It is the view of the ruling bodies (R&A and USGA) its a fundamental principle of the game that you play the ball as it lies. Also giving relief would open up a hornets nest – whats a divot, whats not, ehrn does it cease to be a divot, etc.

I don’t see the hornet’s nest.

You only allow relief from a divot on the fairway.

You already get relief from all sorts of things when the ball has strayed off course – immovable obstructions, garden beds, GUR, staked trees (local rule), cart paths, etc etc.

So why not treat divots as automatic GUR? That’s exactly what it is. If the divot is almost grown over, then there is no benefit in taking the drop anyway – and certainly no undue advantage. If you are on the fairway, and are dropping no closer to the hole, nearest point of relief (i.e. directly adjacent) then how is this against the general principle of equity?

Two guys hit perfect drives, up the middle, one guy rolls into a fat unrepaired divot some turkey has left behind, but has to try and punch it out anyway. No equity there.

Can’t see the issue if the relief is provided on the fairway only and must be approved by the marker. Divots are fairly obvious and it would be hard for an honest player to rightfully claim to his marker that he was in a divot if he wasn’t just to get a better lie.

Cheats will cheat no matter what.

Don’t think it will ever happen though because the principal of the game is play it as it lies and part of the challenge is pulling off that great shot from a difficult lie or bad position.

Presumably the designation of relief is to protect something other than the golfer’s score, i.e. young tree, garden bed, gur, etc… even this must be done within reason.
A bad lie on the fairway is just rotg deal with it, it is just one of the challenges of golf.

Nearly lost my ball once because it rolled into the back of divot that someone had just replaced the turf and not put sand on it to hold it down. Couldn’t move the turf because it would have moved the ball, TRY PLAYING that shot!

No I disagree that it should be gur, even though it would have helped me then…

Presumably the designation of relief is to protect something other than the golfer’s score

why get relief from a cart path then?

If your ball finishes in a divot, too bad and too bad if some idiot prior did not replace the turf or fill it with sand. Golf is, play the ball as it lies unless specified. Yes, one may get angry as they have it hit a great drive only to finish in a divot but life is not fair. Golf is a walk in the park compared to other things. Think of it this way, if you play out of a divot, it may just improve aspects of your game.

Landing in a divot generally makes me happy, it means I’ve put my shot in the right area, ie, other people have landed here and needed to hit an approach shot. Hitting from a divot makes me down a touch which generally makes me hit a better approach shot. Divots generally don’t affect my score in other words, and neither should they affect anyones, usually…. next time your at the range guys, drop a ball into a divot a few times and hit it. I do this with backhanded shots for the times I get stuck under a tree or tight up against a fence, works wonders, last time I got stuck against a fence I birdied the hole.

where does it say in the rule book that golf has to be fair?

Golf is, play the ball as it lies unless specified.

That’s the whole point. You get relief from all kinds of situations which normally occur when you hit the ball off-line.

You get relief from cart paths, for instance, even though it normally takes a bad shot to end up on them.

The rules could say, “bad luck buddy, harden the f up, hit off the path” but they don’t.

So it is a sensible question to ask why unrepaired divots are not treated the same way. And it doesn’t mean I’m a whinging git who always wants breaks to go my way… it just seems inconsistent

but life is not fair

thanks for the heads-up, didn’t realise that

Ask the Chinese Emperor from the Zen Dynasty as apparently they invented the game but I could be wrong.

A divot is part of the game, a cart path is for lazy gits that can’t walk very far… ;-)

You get relief from cart paths, for instance, even though it normally takes a bad shot to end up on them.

But you are more likely to damage your club if you hit off a cart path, than you would from a divot.

What’s that old saying – Play the course as you find it, and play the ball as it lies.

Artifically surfaced roads and paths are obstructions and you ususually get free relief from them, but it isn’t always the case. The committee can choose to make them integral parts of the course, e.g. road hole at Saint Andrews.

The R & A view on the free relief from divots is below

One of the main features of golf is that it tests the player’s ability to execute a wide assortment of strokes under a variety of different conditions. The skill factor in golf would be greatly reduced if players could eliminate difficult conditions, without incurring any penalty, rather than have to overcome them through execution of a particular stroke. It is, therefore, a traditional golfing maxim that you should “play the ball as it lies, and the course as you find it”. This is encapsulated in Rule 13-1 which provides, “the ball must be played as it lies, except as otherwise provided in the Rules”. Free relief is available to the player where there is interference by an abnormal ground condition (Rule 25-1), however, a ball lying in a divot hole does not fall within this category. A divot hole is not abnormal in any way but the natural result of players executing shots and they are present all year round. On the other hand abnormal ground conditions such as casual water and fusarium on the greens are temporary, unusual conditions which merit free relief whilst they are in existence. Where a ball lies in a divot hole a player always has the option to declare his ball unplayable under Rule 28, but free relief is considered to be unduly generous and not within the spirit of the game.

I’d like a drop out of the big sand filled divots they call bunkers. 8-P

How many times do you land in a divot in the course of a year? Not this year for me (or last). I am more inclined to find a bare patch and these are much more challenging than a divot hole on my course.

Wow, some of you are passionate about your divots. It does suck to be in a divot, but its just a bad break. I’ve played for about 15 years, shot sub-par/even par rounds, and NEVER have i played 18 holes and not had a few (not just one) bad breaks. It’s just golf. I agree that if you allow a free drop, it becomes very hard to police. My home course has plenty of bare patches on fairways, but they certainly aren’t all divots – do i get a drop off all of them? And if you need your marker’s okay for a drop – i know plenty of people that would exploit that.
Conversely, what about good breaks. Look at how many time Tiger hit it SO SO poorly at the US Open, that he was in the trampled down grass and had a swing. He eagled the 13th in the 3rd round because of this. If he hit it slightly BETTER, it would have gone straighter, finished in the 5 inch rough and he makes par at best and Rocco wins.
Boys, take the good with the bad and stop complaining.

Yea I agree, play it as it lies. Otherwise you may as well just make it preffered lie through green 100% of the time, and I wouldn’t like to see that happen!

How many times do you land in a divot in the course of a year?

Yeah, one for me in the last year. Rubs of the green tend to even out any way. ‎

Spike marks on greens, footprints in bunkers, fairways that kick your ball off, rakes in ‎bunkers, sprinklers in the way when you want to putt from just off, no sand in ‎bunkers, too much sand in bunkers, fluffy lies, bare lies. The randomness in the game ‎adds most of the interest. Just play the ball and get over it.‎