2006 #3 When is Your Ball Out of Bounds at Beech?

THE SCENE:
You are on the 7th tee at Beech Mountain. You pull out your driver and hit a ball high. It slices to the right where it bounces on the cart path. The ball lands beyond the white out-of-bounds stake, but then it bounces back. It is lying on the grass between the cart path and the white stake. In addition to the white stakes there are white circles and the letters OB painted on the cart path.

What would you do?
A.  Since your ball is inside the white out-of-bounds stake you can play it as it lies. No penalty.
B.  The letters and circles on the cart path mean that everything beyond the cart path is out of bounds. So you have to take a penalty stroke and play another shot from the tee. After that shot, you will be lying 3.

B is correct.
On both hole #3 and hole #7 you will see “OB” and solid white circles painted on the cart path. Ideally the white wooden stakes would be driven into the cart path or into the ground right beside it. But that is impossible. So, instead, we have these drawings on the cart path. The drawings mean “everything beyond the cart path is OB”. The reason the OB line is so close to the path is because everything beyond the path is private property.

So, your ball is out of bounds and you must take a penalty of stroke and distance.

Open your Rules of Golf book and look at 

Rule 27-1:
 b. Ball Out of Bounds
If a ball is out of bounds, the player must play a ball, under penalty of one stroke, as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played (see Rule 20-5).

REMEMBER: At Beech Mountain, if your ball lies beyond the cart path on the portion of either hole #3 or hole #7 where you see “OB” painted on the cart path, your ball is out of bounds.

2005 #5 Can You Move an OB stake?

THE SCENE:
On Sunday morning from my deck on hole #4 I watched a ball land beside an out of bounds stake. The ball was in bounds. The player arrived, walked around the stake and realized it would interfere with his stance. So he pulled the stake out of the ground and tossed it aside. He hit the ball and then replaced the stake. If your ball landed there

What would you do?
The same as the player above? Remove the stake and play your ball?
Take free relief from an immoveable obstruction?
Take an awkward stance and hit the ball?

C is correct.
Look in your Rules of Golf book under Rule #13. You will see:

13-2. Improving Lie, Area of Intended Stance or Swing, or Line of Play

A player must not improve or allow to be improved:
• the position or lie of his ball,
• the area of his intended stance or swing,
• his line of play or a reasonable extension of that line beyond the hole, or
• the area in which he is to drop or place a ball,
by any of the following actions:
• .moving, bending or breaking anything growing or fixed (including immovable obstructions and objects defining out of bounds),

In other words you are not allowed to move a stake defining out of bounds because it is deemed to be fixed. If you do, there is a 2-stroke penalty! The player I watched on hole #4 should have been penalized 2 strokes.

Also these stakes are not obstructions. Most stakes are. Stakes defining water hazards and ground under repair are obstructions. You can move them. But look under Definitions in your Rules book and find Out of Bounds. You will see the following:

Objects defining out of bounds such as walls, fences, stakes and railings, are not obstructions and are deemed to be fixed. Stakes identifying out of bounds are not obstructions and are deemed to be fixed.

REMEMBER: Don’t ever touch an out of bounds stake and you will be ok.