Ball caught by opponent!!

Yes, you read that correctly... ball CAUGHT by opponent!!

I haven't look up the ruling on this yet but this is what happened...

I was playing in a society 4BBB comp yesterday. There is always a bit of banter etc in our society but this was one of our annual comp's.

My partner had overshot the green and was chipping up a bank onto the green. He overcooked it a bit but as it sailed over, past the pin and heading for the other side of the green, one of the opposing team caught the ball!! Yes, caught the ball.

We all stood there for a few seconds not believing what we had seen. His excuse was "I though you were out of it".

We resolved it by placing the ball where we thought it would have ended up (he blobbed the hole anyway).

I'm sure the other side should have had a penalty but as we were unsure of the ruling, it was raining (so we didn't want to stand there getting the rule book out), and it transpired that a 2-shot penalty would have made no difference to the overall result that we would not penalise him. Penalty enough that he now has to live with this every time he comes out with us and take a big sack full of stick!!

Anyone come across this before?

You haven't made it clear if this was strokeplay or matchplay. In any event the ball should have been dropped.

And your partner was 'out'. ;-)

Sorry - good point... it was a strokeplay (stableford) event.

Yes - maybe he thought he was playing cricket... From the way my partner played the rest of the round, he may as well have been out :-)

I think I'm piecing this together...

The opponent is given a 2-shot penalty; The ball can be dropped from where it is (in the opponents hand!); Or the player may take the option to replay the shot

Question now is... it is 4BBB. One of the oponents is penalised 2 strokes but the other oponent makes par. Should they be penalised 2 strokes also?

Paul

It is still not clear. Were the other 2 playing a match against you and your partner or simply playing as another pair in a competition of many pairs?

It may make a difference to the penalty and where the ball is to be played from.

Paul,

As I have said in numerous posts on here, "the Rules are complex".

Trying to put together an answer to your question depends on a number of things. (BTW, yes I have come across this before). You say the comp was a 4BBB Stableford so there may be no penalty in your instance (Rule 19-1, from Rule 19-4) and in any case the penalty would have been against the one player. It is usually only in Foursomes (alternate shots) where a side gets penalised.

D H,

Sorry for late reply...

It was a bigger comp - 8 pairs all competing.