Can't believe I haven't come upon this situation before. Seems kinda common. On a short par 5, I hit a very good drive down the fairway which got better than expected roll and ended up trickling out of the fairway into the rough about 2 yards off the fairway. It stopped maybe 8 ft from the 150-yard marker, which stood about 6 ft tall and 4 inches wide. Unfortunately, it ended up directly behind the post which was now directly on the line of the next shot. I had plenty of room to swing, but was concerned that the ball could ricochet directly back at me and seriously injure or kill me. Being that close to the post, I would not have had enough time to protect myself. I dropped one clublength away and hit the ball onto the green for a rare reach in two. It was not a competitive round, but I still recorded my score for my hdcp. On oob, I entered the score without taking a penalty for repositioning the ball. On my official USGA hdcp, I entered the score with an added 1-stroke penalty. From what I have read in the rule book, I'm guessing there should have been no relief allowed. Correct?

DougE wrote:

From what I have read in the rule book, I'm guessing there should have been no relief allowed. Correct?

Yup, 24-2 says the ball has to lie on the obstruction or near enough to interfere with your stance or swing. there is no line of sight relief in this situation. There may be a local rule though that allows you relief. I've seen that before. Most of those 150 markers come out of the ground though.

I see this all the time with the sprinkler boxes on some holes. One side is all dented up because of people not getting relief for line of sight haha.

No relief. Should've tried to remove the post if it wasn't named in the local rules to be an unmovable object as BirdieXris suggests.

But the "one clublength" puzzles me. You should've declared it an unplayable lie and drop within 2 clublengths, not nearer to the hole (or back in a straight line, or... - you know the drill). You'ld prolly have been able to drop it on the fairway!

All at the cost of 1 penalty stroke of course.