Whether you’re a Mario Kart player or an O’Doyle family billy madisonyou’ve learned the hard way: banana peels are bad news.
But they don’t often become obstacles in professional golf.
So it seemed particularly unfair when Rory McIlroy’s ball landed in a clump of tall grass during his third-round match at the Australian Open at the proud and delightful Royal Melbourne on Saturday. return Precipitate inside the banana peel.
“I know, it’s a bit of a double whammy,” McIlroy said in his post-match interview. “It was in that little tuft of long grass and then the banana peel, but I shouldn’t have been there in the first place and it was a bad drive.”
The peel issue raises an interesting question: Why can’t McIlroy relieve the pressure?
When he was asked about the possibility after the game, he said he didn’t even bother to call the rules official.
“No, because I thought I wouldn’t,” McIlroy said. “The banana was a loose obstacle that was placed on the ball. So if I moved the banana peel, the ball would move. I just wasn’t trying.”
This is where things get interesting. The USGA defines a “loose obstruction” as a “stand-alone natural object,” using examples such as leaves, branches or blades of grass. Golf fans are used to watching players surgically remove clubs from around golf balls because if you move a loose obstruction and the ball moves as a result, you’re penalized one stroke. (See Rule 15 if you like this kind of thing.
However, there is an adjacent rule that gives McIlroy more leeway. “Mobile Obstacles” can be moved anywhere and at any time, and if your ball moves in the process, don’t worry – you can replace it without penalty.
Movable obstacles are defined as “man-made objects that can be moved with reasonable effort, such as water bottles, scorecards, torn T-shirts, trash cans, benches, etc.”
So is a banana peel closer to a stick or a water bottle?
Dig deeper into the USGA’s list of definitions and you’ll find other examples of natural objects, such as animal droppings (white spots, not mitigated by goose poop), dead animals (double white spots, not mitigated by dead geese), snow (not particularly relevant, but interesting), and spider webs (ditto).
Anyway, from my understanding and that of an Australian rules expert – and obviously McIlroy’s – a banana peel is a natural instead of artificial Purpose. This makes it a loose barrier rather than a movable barrier. This means he cannot move it without risking a penalty. That meant McIlroy didn’t have much success at all on his next shot, resulting in a banana wreck en route to a double bogey.
Bad banana boat.
McIlroy recovered admirably from his struggles on the second hole. He birdied No. 3 and birdied five of his final 10 holes for a 3-under 68. That leaves him tied for 24th, nine shots behind third-round leader Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen of Denmark.
