The NCGA Team Match Program format consists of a four-ball match played concurrently with two singles matches.  Here is what a member wrote regarding a ruling in one of the matches. 

My partner’s whose ball was in a bunker short of the green, played his shot onto the green near the hole.  I marked and lifted my partner’s ball while he raked the bunker so my opponent who was away could play.  My opponent hit his chip shot too hard and his ball rolled all the way across the green and ended up on the fringe near the bunker my partner had played from.  My partner didn’t see the shot because he was raking the bunker.  As my partner walked onto the green he saw the ball and thought it was his (thinking I had tossed it back to him after I had lifted it) so he picked it up thus moving an opponent’s ball in play in the Four-ball match, but this was not a ball involved in his singles match.

Is there a penalty and if so who is penalized?

You make the Call:  Read Rule 18-3, 30-3f, 30-3g and although 30-2a is another form of play, it also gives insight to the answer.

Answer:  Under Rule 18-3, the player who moved his opponent’s ball in the four-ball match incurred a one-stroke penalty in the four-ball match.  His partner is not penalized as the action did not advantage him or disadvantage his opponent. Rule 30-3f.

Since the ball that was moved involved the player in the other singles match, there is no penalty to anyone in the singles matches. The players are opponents only in their own match.  They are outside agencies under the rules in the other singles match.

This article was filed under Rules Situations.
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