From the Golf WA website
embuggerance (plural embuggerances)
- (UK, military, slang) Any obstacle (natural or artificial) that gets in the way of progress.
Here’s a rules question for you all. If a golfer is stuck in a bunker, how many ways can that golfer get the ball out of the bunker?
Hopefully you didn’t answer anything other than one …. because hitting it out is all there is!
While taking an unplayable is the basic right made available to a golfer, the R&A does not give much respite to a golfer who is struggling to get a ball out of a bunker and decides to take a drop.
Thankfully, bunkers aren’t really that hard to get out of. However in some situations bunkers can be a real obstacle in the way of progress, and a golfer may decide they would rather take an unplayable under penalty of one stroke.
When taking an unplayable as per Rule 28, a golfer has three options.
a) Replay the shot from a spot as near as possible to the spot from where the original shot was played
b) Drop a ball behind the point where the ball lay, keeping that point directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind that point the ball may be dropped; or
c) Drop a ball within two club-lengths of the spot where the ball lay, but not nearer the hole.
Now here’s the catch.
If the unplayable ball is in a bunker, the player may proceed under Clause a, b or c. If he or she elects to proceed under Clause b or c, a ball must be dropped in the bunker.
So technically, the only way out of the bunker is to hit it out, however a golfer does have the option to replay the shot under Option A.
Note that taking Option A will only get you out of the bunker if your previous shot was made from outside the bunker. If you make just one attempt while in the bunker and fail to get it out, taking option A will also end up with you taking your next swing from the sand.
There’s scope here to make a philosophical point about how golf mirror’s life’s struggles, however we’re not sure we could do it any justice.
And it probably wouldn’t make you feel any better either!