Rules Guy: If your ball finds a drain, can you take relief on the fairway above it?

Golf's Rules Guy explains whether a player can take free relief on a fairway directly above a culvert drain. If the Committee has not marked the underground culvert as a penalty area to avoid affecting the fairway above, the culvert is treated as an abnormal course condition. Under those circumstances, a player is entitled to free relief rather than being restricted by penalty area rules.

The writer notes that the exact relief location depends on where the ball rests, which could be directly above on the fairway or near the culvert entrance per Clarification 16.1/5. In a second ruling, Rules Guy confirms that taking relief from a cart path strictly requires using the nearest point of complete relief, even if that results in an obstructed shot.