Bunker Rules

[marksman007]

I am a bit unsure about a few rules and would like some clarification.

A:A player is in a bunker and hits the ball out and then hits his club into the sand. There is no penalty,is this correct?


B:Same as A except the ball does not come out the bunker.

C: A player touches the sand before his shot with his hand.


Also did the Jimenez (or whoever) incident (raking a bunker when his next shot is out of one) cause a change of rules? GolfWRX says so but I have not heard anything.

[sevenfourate]

A. No penalty.

B. Penalty - "Testing hazard" prior to next shot from same hazard.

C. Testing hazard again.... The only "testing" allowed is by fairly taking a stance and feeling the sand with your feet.

I read the same,albeit elswhere - it was changed two weeks after the "Cink incident" supposedly ?????

[RGS]

Heres teh decision from the R&A site on the Stewart Cink incident.

"Rule 13-4a prohibits a player from testing the condition of the hazard in which his ball lies or a similar hazard. Yet Exception 3 to the Rule, which was introduced in 2008, allows a player to test the condition of one hazard after playing from that hazard into a similar hazard. Although Decision 13-4/0.5 lists smoothing a bunker with a rake, club or otherwise as an example of testing the condition of the hazard, the Etiquette Section of the Rules of Golf provides that “Before leaving a bunker, players should carefully fill up and smooth over all holes and footprints made by them and any nearby made by others.”

It is not the intent of Rule 13-4a to prohibit players from practicing the proper etiquette of the game when more than one bunker is involved. Therefore, when the player’s ball lies in a bunker, it would not be a breach of the Rules if the player were to smooth the sand in another bunker, provided (a) the smoothing is for the purpose of tidying up the bunker, (b) the smoothing does not breach Rule 13-2 (Improving Lie, Area of Intended Stance or Swing, or Line of Play) with respect to his next stroke and (c) there is not a reasonable possibility that the smoothing could affect a subsequent stroke by the player.

If the player were to smooth sand in the bunker in which his ball lies prior to making his first stroke in that bunker, he would be in breach of Rule 13-4a.

Questions have arisen in connection with a recent ruling involving Stewart Cink at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In that situation, the player incurred a penalty for smoothing sand in a bunker from which he had not made a stroke, when his ball lay in another bunker -- a ruling that followed the USGA’s Rules of Golf Committee’s position at that time. To avoid such an act being a breach of the Rules in the future, the JRC has decided to make public its agreed position on smoothing a similar hazard."