EWGA-Long Island

Notes about the game from Patty Ellis, Past Rules Chair
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How Do You Spell Relief?

          Sometimes it’s spelled P-E-N-A-L-I-T-Y-S-T-R-O-K-E
          Sometimes it’s spelled F-R-E-E-R-E-L-I-E-F
          Your ball ends up in a position from which you feel you need to take relief: it lies on a cart path, in a lake, on a rock, under a bench, up against a tree or worse yet, in a tree. You’ve already decided that you want to take relief, so the question then becomes “do I need to assign myself a penalty stroke or do I get free relief?”
          The Rule of Thumb to answer this question is to ask yourself “Am I responsible for the mess I’m in?” If the answer to this question is “yes”, then chances are you’ll be spelling relief P-E-N-A-L-T-Y-S-T-R-O-K-E.
          Here are some examples to help explain this.

Your ball winds up in a lake. The lake is part of the golf course (whether or not you knew it was there). You were responsible for hitting your ball into the lake so it costs you a penalty stroke to continue. Contrarily, your ball winds up in a puddle. This isn’t your fault (the puddle isn’t supposed to be there), so you’re able to spell relief F-R-E-E-R-E-L-I-E-F.
Your ball is lost, your fault, charge yourself a stroke. Your ball winds up in an area where maintenance work is being done. This isn’t your responsibility so no penalty stroke is necessary. You hit your ball out of bounds, your fault, charge yourself a stroke. Your ball rolls into a Styrofoam cup left on the course, not your fault, so no stroke.
Cart paths, electrical boxes and other man made structures (called obstructions) are not strategically designed to be part of the course so relief from them is free. (However, note that you only get free relief if there’s interference with your stance and / or swing. You do not get free relief if your planned ball flight is impinged).

If you’re fair in applying the Rule of Thumb, you should come up with the right ruling the majority of the time.