Picture this: after a majestic tee shot, you hit your second, a towering 9-iron pin seeker. It lands 15 feet past the hole, spins back and stops overhanging the hole. While the hole-out would have been a story to take back to the 19th hole, what ensues next will etch this one in the history books...
Your playing partner, we'll call him Bob, proceeds to make a mess of the hole. After his drive, he hits it in the water and takes a drop. He tops the next two (hey a least the ball is getting closer to the hole) and in what seems like a stroke of luck he knocks his 50-yard pitch to two feet for a tap-in triple. As you watched the mess unfold, and laughed out loud over your opponent's ridiculous Happy Gilmore-esque celebration, a gust of wind pops up and nudges your ball just enough to get it moving...it drops!
Bob (who claims to be your club's Thomas Pagel) immediately cites Rule 13.3a claiming that an unreasonable amount of time had passed since you took your last shot and requires that a penalty stroke be added forcing you to mark a 3 on the card instead of a 2.
Unfortunately for your opponent, he clearly only read the "Player's Edition" of the Rules of Golf. Had he truly held the knowledge of Thomas Pagel he would known that Clarification 13.3a/1 specifically defines "reasonable time:"
Determining the limits of a reasonable time to reach the hole depends on the circumstances of the stroke and includes time for a player’s natural or spontaneous reaction to the ball not going into the hole.
For example, a player may have played the shot from well off the putting green and it may take them several minutes to reach the hole while other players play their shots and all walk to the putting green. Or, the player may need to take an indirect route to the hole by walking around the line of play of another player on the putting green.
Looks like the mess Bob made ultimately made this hole a 5-shot swing instead of 3...doesn't seem like it would have mattered anyways!
