Distance information not considered advice

Q. I know I can't give advice to anyone but my partner during a round of golf. Is providing distance information considered advice? I play with a group where I'm the only one with a distance measuring device and they are always asking me how far the flag is. -- Jim Fallon

A. Jim, information regarding the distance between two objects is public information and not advice. A player may ask anyone the distance between his ball and the hole. Maybe someone else in your group should splurge and buy a measuring device.

Q. I played a ball from a bunker and it went out of bounds. I know that my only option is to drop another ball in the bunker and take stroke and distance. My fellow competitors said I could not rake the bunker before I dropped my ball to play the shot again. Were they right? I ended up dropping in a big footprint. -- Tom Kayle

A. No, they were not right since the prohibitions in Rule 13-4 apply only when the player's ball is in the bunker or when it has been lifted from a bunker and may be dropped or placed in the bunker. In your case, your ball has been played from the bunker rather than lifted. The rules allow you to rake before dropping.

Q. Last week while playing, I made a stroke at a ball and missed it (whiffed the ball). I then looked down and discovered that the ball I had made the stroke at was not my ball. We didn't know what to do or if it was a penalty or not. I decided not to take a penalty since it wasn't my ball to begin with. Was I right? -- Ryan Delaney

A. Ryan, you did make a stroke at the ball with the intent of hitting it. It was a wrong ball and anytime you make a stroke at a wrong ball you incur a 2-stroke penalty in stroke play or loss of hole in match play. Since strokes made with a wrong ball do not count in your score, you don't have to count the whiff. Next time you may want to make sure it's your ball.

Q. We played in a Women's Southern Nevada Golf Association tournament last month where, on a par 3, the lake was marked as a water hazard (yellow). One of our fellow competitors skulled her second shot from the bunker over the green into the lake. She then proceeded to go and drop a ball at the margin where the ball entered the lake greenside. We didn't think this was the right procedure but we were not sure. What should she have done? -- Frustrated Players

A. Since the lake was marked as a water hazard (yellow) she did not proceed correctly. It sounds as if she was treating the lake as a lateral water hazard and what she did was a serious breech of the rules. Her options would have been:

n Drop a ball behind the water hazard, keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the hazard margin between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped. This procedure would probably make it necessary for her to go on the other side of the lake, keeping the lake between her and the hole.

n Drop a ball in the bunker at the original spot from where she just played.

n Drop a ball in the optional drop zone that was provided for this tournament.

Q. It was windy last week and after addressing my ball (taking my stance and grounding my club) I saw that the ball was shaking and thought it might move. I then stepped away from the ball and started my procedure again but this time I did not ground my club. Before I could strike the ball it moved. Should I have put it back and taken a penalty stroke or was I OK playing it from where it lay?

A. Once you have addressed your ball and the ball moves, you are deemed to have caused it to move. You needed to replace it under Rule 18-2b and take a penalty stroke. The only way you can avoid a penalty under these circumstances is to mark your ball, lift it, take it out of play and replace it. The ball is now again in play and you can start over and, if it's still windy, don't ground your club.

Sue May is a U.S. Open rules official, a member of the USGA Senior Women's committee and tournament director of the Women's Trans National Championship. Address your rules questions to suemay@cox.net.