Can you take free relief from a fence if standing on a cart path?

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

My opponent hit a drive that came to rest against a fence. About two feet from the fence runs a cart path that goes the length of the fairway. He had no swing due to the fence, but when taking his stance, he was standing on the cart path and so insisted he was entitled to relief. I was under the impression that if you have no swing due to an immovable obstruction like a fence, you’re not entitled to such relief. Can you clarify? —Russ Bonanno, via email

Rules Guy is going to sit on the fence, and here’s why. If the fence is defining out of bounds, and the position of the ball is such that the stroke is clearly unreasonable because of the fence, then under Rule 16.1a(3) free relief would not be allowed even though the player has interference from the cart path.

If it is not a boundary fence and on the course, however, then the player has interference from two immovable obstructions and can choose which one they want to take relief from. If relief from each bounces back and forth, then they’d find relief from both at once, per Definition of Nearest Point of Complete Relief.

So, your statement about not getting relief when interfered with by an immovable obstruction is off, but likely because you didn’t know to differentiate the status of the object — relief gets denied when interference by something from which you do not get free relief makes the stroke clearly unreasonable.

For more relief guidance from our guru, read on …

I was playing in our member-member tournament and hit a wayward shot. My ball came to rest behind a memorial tree, which was directly between my ball and the green. I asked for free relief, reasoning that, as a memorial, the tree wasn’t part of the course design. I was denied and told I could only have gotten free relief from the adjacent memorial stone. Was that right? —Tim Muldoon, Buffalo, N.Y.

It sounds right to Rules Guy.

Specific trees can be protected by Local Rule by making them no-play zones, but such treatment is typically reserved for young, growing trees. If the committee didn’t make the memorial tree a no-play zone, then under the Definition of Obstruction the memorial plaque itself is the only immovable obstruction and abnormal course condition that free relief would allow for.

Rules Guy also needn’t tell you never to, er, take relief on a memorial tree.