Improving Your Lie

Like it or not, you play the ball from where it stopped. But there are some exceptions where you can take relief without a penalty. It pays to be aware of them. You usually play the ball as it lies, accepting bad luck as part of the game. If you find yourself in a divot mark or other unpleasant lie in mid fairway, you have to play the ball as it lies. You may feel this is harsh but it is part of the rules.

Exceptions
The commonest exception is the use of winter rules. These normally let you choose your lie - pick up your ball and place it on fairways and the aprons of greens. But they are not hard and fast rules because they are not part of the Rules of Golf. They are local rules made by the club committee.

Usually you can move the ball within 6m (15cm) - not nearer the hole - but the distance may vary in different golf clubs. You may also clean the ball when you lift it in these circumstances - after you have marked its position.

Sometimes clubs may continue their winter rules into spring and summer to take account of exceptional circumstances. These may include the condition of the fairways after a very dry summer.

Be careful to note when your club ends its winter rules. If you continue to choose your lie after the committee has ended the rule lose a hole in match play or 2 strokes in stroke play.

Obtaining relief
There are certain cases where can help yourself quite legitimately under the rules. You can flatten the surface of the teeing ground of the hole you are playing in preparation for your stroke. You can lift and drop without penalty from casual water, holes made by burrowing animals and ground under repair.

You may also obtain relief without penalty from immovable obstructions, which include paths with manmade surfaces. You can drop the ball within one club length of the nearest point of relief which is not nearer the hole, except where that point puts you in a hazard or on a green. But make sure to check that there is not a local rule on the card which declares such paths 'integral parts of the course'.

If your shot from a bunker is impeded by damage caused by burrowing animals or casual water, you can take a drop but it must still be in the bunker. There is no relief from damage by burrowing animals in a water hazard. Although this may sound odd, bear in mind that many hazards may be dry for parts of the year, leaving you the option of playing out of them.

Except in a hazard, you may remove loose impediments -stones, leaves, twigs-from around your ball, but you must be careful that the ball does not move as a result. If it does, you incur a penalty stroke and must replace the ball where it lay.

Bear in mind that you cannot remove loose impediments in bunkers. It sometimes seems quite natural to remove a leaf when you approach your ball in a bunker, but if you do so you suffer loss of hole in match play or 2 strokes in stroke play. The only exception is that the rules allow you to remove enough matter to see a part of your ball. On the green, but not elsewhere, sand and loose impediments may be removed.