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located within two club-lengths of the reference points , the ball must come to rest in the relief area in the same area of the course that the ball first touched when dropped in the relief area .
Two interesting scenarios where you may want to think about taking unplayable ball relief :
• You get a little too excited with a birdie putt on turtleback greens and it rolls completely off the back of the green into gnarly rough . Would you rather take a penalty stroke and try the putt again using stroke-and-distance , or would you rather try to save that
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stroke and attempt to flop the shot out of the rough back onto the green near the hole ? The former may be your best play .
• Your tee ball on a long par-3 goes astray and plops into a greenside bunker , just inside of the lip , to the point where your best play might be to hit it backwards just to get out of the bunker , leaving you the possibility of an up-and-down just to make four . Or you could take one look at the fried egg , invoke unplayable ball relief , and go back to the tee using stroke-and-distance and hope you can hit it close on your second try and escape with your bogey .
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Taking unplayable ball relief may be your only option when your ball is wedged in a tree .
Rule 19.3 covers unplayable ball relief in a bunker . For one penalty stroke , a player may get out of the bunker by taking stroke-anddistance relief . Also , one may take back-ofthe-line or lateral relief for one stroke as long as the ball remains in the bunker . There ’ s an additional option in Rule 19.3b stating a player may , for two penalty strokes , take back-of-the-line relief outside of the bunker .
Understanding the nuances of Rule 19 and unplayable ball relief can help relieve some stress on the golf course and may even save you some strokes in the long run .
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