During the second round of The 150th Open Championship at the Old Course, St Andrews, Xander Schauffele, found himself in an interesting rules scenario after his tee shot on the 12th hole deflected backwards off a grandstand into an area of gorse bushes.
Having initially had to search for the ball, it was eventually found within the 3-minute search time by Xander himself accidentally standing on it. As he had moved his ball in play whilst searching for it, altering his original lie in the process, there was no penalty to the player and the ball was simply replaced at the nearest spot with a lie most similar to the player's original lie (Rule 7.4). This ended up being right next to where his ball originally lay, deep within the gorse bush.Having identified the ball as being his and returned it to play, the next aspect of the ruling was whether or not he was entitled to take free relief from the spectator grandstand which was between his ball and the hole.Grandstands are considered to be temporary immovable obstructions (TIO’s) which are most common at professional events in the form of tents, scoreboards, grandstands, and television towers etc and are not considered to be part of the challenge of playing the hole so the rules provide free relief from them.Interference from a TIO occurs when it interferes with your stance or the area of your intended swing, or when your ball lies in, on, under or behind the TIO so that any part of it intervenes directly between your ball and the hole and is on your line of play. Additionally, the rule also provides a one club-length buffer zone on each side of your line of play.The grandstand was undoubtedly on Schauffele’s line of sight, however, a player is not entitled to take free relief if playing the ball as it lies would clearly be unreasonable because of something other than the TIO (in this case, the lie of the ball in the bush) and additionally if it is clearly unreasonable for a player to play the ball far enough that the ball will actually reach the TIO.The question was then asked whether playing out of the bush would be possible and indeed reasonable in the circumstances which it was established by the player and referee that it would not be, so Schauffele opted to take an unplayable.Having then taken unplayable ball relief for a penalty of one stroke, Schauffele dropped his ball back-on-the-line on an unused teeing area for the 7th hole in a position where there was still TIO interference. However, having assessed where his relief area to drop would be (in the thick rough), he eventually elected to play the ball over the grandstand from its new position on the short grass.
