Originally Posted by
Jeffrey
Watching the final round made me wonder… how can you drive your ball to a completely different fairway and not receive an out of bounds penalty? Even as a lame amateur, I’d be apologizing to the players actually playing the correct hole and consider myself out of bounds.
"Out of bounds" is any place that is off the COURSE (not off the HOLE), and any other place arbitrarily designated as "out of bounds" by local rules and marked by white stakes.
ANY other place AT ALL (other than ground under repair or casual water or areas permanently or temporarily marked as a free drop) is "play it as it lies."
In other words, "out of bounds" is a construct, aside from literally being off the course itself, which is out of bounds in all localities.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust