Houston WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!!!

[nudgee]

I was just talking to my pro friend on the phone about the Oz Golf Champs and was giving him the low down of my weekend. I told him how I went walkabouts in the middle of the second round before rallying in the last three holes. I told him about the bad luck I had on the 16th hole which went something like this.

Hit 20* hybrid off the tee (yes I know that was ghey) and hit it long and down the middle. I could not reach the green in two so I hit a 6 iron intending to land it in flat area short of the greenside bunkers, however I tugged it a little and it took a bitch of a bounce left into the trees. Fortunately I found the ball and whilst it was against a big tree root, I still had a shot and managed to blast it out. The ball just stopped short of the green side bunker, basically 1 cm from dropping in - a very sandy lie. Unfortunately with my chip I didnt pick the ball up cleanly, fluffed it a bit and it did not make it onto the green - and to add insult to injury it plugged at the face of the bunker about 1 foot from the lip!!! I cracked it and proceeded to throw my wedge at high speed into the bunker (yeah I know, another cranky moment!). The wedge head plugged into the bunker like an axe but was away from the ball. I grabbed the wedge and took a funky stance outside of the bunker and proceeded to play a blast shot that propelled the plugged ball 20 feet into the air and it landed 1 foot from the hole so got away with a bogey. At the time I had joked with the guys that thank god I let go of the wedge before it hit the sand as otherwise it would have been deemed to be a case of testing the bunker conditions.

However to my great horror, my Pro mate INFORMED ME that as the Wedge head was plugged in the sand, the mere action of lifting the wedge should be deemed as testing conditions and should therefore have attracted a 2 shot penalty!!!! ****!!!

I must admit I don't know the rules that well and as I did not get much of a reaction from my group (even when I made the comment about testing sand conditions) as to a potential breach of the rules I thought it was all good. However I don't want to win the Champs if I was wrong in my assessment and should have incurred a two shot penalty.

Is my Pro friend correct in his assessment??? I don't want to add any further drama to this but I cannot accept the Champion tag and Trophy if I was in clear breach of the rules and should have incurred a two stroke penalty.

For the record, I am serious about this.

[kingslayer33]

...Secondly, how does the rules distinguish between intent to test the sand and the intent of iPhone users to use the compass feature?

Maybe "intent" as a grey area only becomes valid because the original club (and rake) makers paid their kick-back to the USGA and R&A, and the compass inventor did not.

[Moe Norman]

Secondly, how does the rules distinguish between intent to test the sand and the intent of iPhone users to use the compass feature?

Completely different. One is avoidable, and is an active choice to use something outside the rules of golf.

Intent once you're out there is completely different. The iphone DMD rule is more comparable to carrying 15 clubs, but only intending to use 14.