One part of my job as the Director of Rules and Competition on mini tours is to put down the proper distances for players. The works gets more complicated when women play against men.
EAST COAST PRO TOUR (ECPT)
This mini tour accepts women and they play against men for the same purse, but the distances are cut down by approximately 10%. This creates a level field. A few weeks ago, in Bromont we had a tournament and Caroline Ciot played 65-68 to finish second and she went away with a check of 3 000$.
DP WORLD TOUR
In Sweden, they did the same thing at the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed and the winner of the event was Linn Grant. She won 319 716 Euros.
Comment
The decision to have women play against men with a different set of tees is not accepted by every male playing golf. I personally think it is a very good idea to promote women golf. In a province like Quebec, the girls don’t have the same number of tournaments than the men.
DROPPING AN OBJECT ON THE BALL
In the same tournament, a player calls me to tell me that he dropped his Range finder on his ball and the ball moved. I told him it was a penalty of one stroke, and he must replace the ball.
Later, he gave me another version of the events. We were playing under the Preferred Lies Local Rule and before picking up his ball, he looked at his distance and when he bent to get to his ball, he dropped the object on the ball.
THE RULE:
A player gets a one-stroke penalty if he causes the ball to move. We have 4 exceptions to that rule.
Exception 1: When a player is allowed to lift a ball and, in the process, he does something that causes the ball to move.
Exception 2: When searching for his ball.
Exception 3: On the green.
Exception 4: When applying a rule.
The player got away with that one, and the other players confirmed that the player was reaching for his ball.
It the player had dropped the object on his ball and the ball was in a bunker or in the rough. The preferred lies local rule does not apply, and the player would not have avoided the penalty.
CAUTION: Penalty or not, if the player does not replace the ball, he will incur the general penalty: 2 strokes in Stroke Play and loss of hole in Match Play.
