Golf writers see red over Ruddy plot

During the annual Golf Writers' home internationals at The European Club earlier this week, commander-in-chief and host Pat Ruddy decided to have a little fun at the expense of his colleagues, myself included. It involved moving some of Tuesday's pin placements between the morning matches against England and the afternoon clash with Scotland.

In the event, we coped well until the par-four 12th, which has a notional yardage of 459 off the back tee. I say notional, because the green happens to be a world-record 127 yards long. So, there was quite a difference between playing to a morning tee, about 20 yards in from the front, and an afternoon tee which was about 20 yards from the back.

It meant that instead of a gentle pitch, my greensomes partner had to hit a full nine iron, and was still about 40 feet short of the target. Ruddy's explanation afterwards? "I was trying to give you guys an edge."

For the record, Ireland's gallant team of six tied the matches 1 1/2 each but the Scots, with former amateur international John Huggan in their ranks, had already done enough to retain the title.

This Day In Golf History: On September 23rd 1930, Maurice McCarthy Jnr won the longest 18-hole match in the history of US Amateur Championship at that time. In his second-round tie with George Von Elm at Merion, McCarthy eventually got through on the 10th tie hole.

Teaser: In strokeplay, A mistakenly replaced his ball in front of B's ball-marker (which was near A's ball-marker) and putted. The ball came to rest about one foot from the hole. The error was then discovered and A lifted his ball without marking its position, placed it in front of his own ball-marker and finished the hole. What is the ruling?

Answer: When A replaced his ball in front of B's ball-marker and putted, he played from a wrong place and incurred a penalty of two strokes; the ball was in play (Rule 20-7b). When A then lifted his ball from where it lay about one foot from the hole without marking its position and did not replace it, he incurred the general penalty (two strokes) for a breach of Rule 20-1. Thus, A incurred a total penalty of four strokes.