Rules Review
Rules of Golf Review: I've got a blind shot and my partner is helping me aim. Where can he stand when I hit?
CatLane
Back in 2019, shortly after the USGA and R&A enacted major revisions to the Rules of Golf, there were a few instances on the professional tours when players faced penalties for violating Rule 10.2b(4). In short, there was a lot of confusion about when golfers should be penalized for having their caddie stand in the restricted area as they made a stroke. The intent of rules makers was to ensure caddies could not stand behind players as they took their stance to hit a shot. Aiming, at that point in the process, needed to be something golfers did on their own.
What made things confusing and frustrating for golfers was the early 2019 interpretation of when a player had begun to take his or her stance and where the caddie was standing at that time. To this day, it’s perfectly legal for a caddie to stand behind a player on the line of play as the shot is being evaluated, but the caddie has to move away as the player prepares to swing. There was at least one instance on the PGA Tour early that year when Denny McCarthy was initially penalized for violating 10.2b(4), but video evidence made it clear he wasn’t beginning to take his stance before his caddie moved. The PGA Tour rescinded the penalty for McCarthy.
You can read all about the early days of this new rule here, but if you want to know more about the current rules regarding of line of play and directional information as it relates to average golfers who don’t have caddies, read on.
Let’s start by getting into the scenario in our headline. Say you’re playing a four-ball match on a course you’re not familiar with. You have a blind shot into a green but know there is out-of-bounds somewhere along the left side of the hole, but you can’t see it because of a hill. Is it permissible for your partner in the match to stand on top of the hill to help “guide” you away from hitting your next shot out-of-bounds?
The short answer is that your partner can stand on the hill to indicate where the markers are, but he or she has to move away from that spot before the stroke is made. As long as your partner moved before you hit, there’s no penalty. If he or she stood there while you swung, your side would lose the hole in match play or you would be assessed a two-shot penalty in stroke play if anyone stayed in that spot while you swung.
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Where this rule of helping a golfer hit a shot gets even more murky for many is understanding that it extends beyond the line of play. The definition of line of play is the line where the player intends their ball to go after a stroke, including the area on that line that is a reasonable distance up above the ground and on either side of it. In other words, the line of play is not necessarily a straight line between two points; it might be a curved line based on where the player intends the ball to go.
OK, so what if your partner gets out of the way before the stroke but leaves a hat on the spot where you should be hitting your next shot? Well, that's also a penalty.
You might think that, since the out-of-bounds markers are not on your line of play, there is nothing wrong with marking that position by having your partner stand on a spot between you and the markers. Unfortunately, that’s still a violation of Rule 10.2. In addition to specifying “line of play” as a no-go for aiming help, you also can’t assist in aiming for “other directional information.” The two exceptions are getting out of the way before the shot and providing public information in relation to the position of an object. An example would be pointing out that a tall tree you can see over a hill is on the same line as the flagstick.
The smartest way to handle the situation in the headline would have been to have your partner give you the line to play away from the OB markers and then move away before you hit.