Rules Guy: Can You Take Free Relief on the Fairway if Your Ball Is in a Drain?

A reader asks what to do when a creek running along the left side of a hole enters a culvert beneath the fairway and emerges on the right. Red stakes mark both sides of the creek, but they end where the creek enters the culvert. If a ball comes to rest underground beneath the fairway, can the player take free relief directly above it onto the fairway?

Rules Guy explains that the edges of a penalty area extend vertically upward and downward. But if the Committee marked the edges of the culvert as a penalty area—not the middle section, because it would not want the fairway above the culvert to be part of the penalty area—the ball inside the underground culvert is actually in an abnormal course condition. Free relief is therefore allowed.

Where relief is taken depends on where the ball is found. The nearest point of complete relief could be directly above the ball, or it could be near the entrance to the culvert. Rules Guy points readers to Clarification 16.1/5 for further detail.

In a second question, a reader asks about a ball resting on a cart path. The path runs to the left of the fairway on a right dogleg, and a large oak stands just beyond the path on the right. In a tournament, the opponent wanted to take relief on the left side of the path to open up the line to the green, while the reader argued that the nearest point of complete relief was on the right—even though the tree would then threaten the next shot.

Rules Guy confirms that the reader was correct. The nearest point of complete relief is determined from the path, not by how convenient the resulting shot will be. The Rules provide relief from the path, not from every obstacle that may remain afterward. In Rules Guy’s humorous formulation, the opponent should learn the Rules as well as his fellow competitor does.

Based on the Rules Guy column published by GOLF.com on October 6, 2026.