After the big controversy this past weekend, the world now knows WHAT "grounding" is, but WHY it's a rule has so far gone unanswered in all the reports I read.

(Grounding is when the player lets his club touch the ground in a bunker).

Hi Athos,

Apparently you can't ground your club in any hazard. Bunkers are only one type of hazard.

The reason appears to be that you might gain some type of advantage by pushing down the sand or long grass just behind your ball.( depending on the hazard ).

Regards

Tut

Found a great answer here:
"There are several reasons why you are not allowed to ground your club in a hazard. First is to increase the difficulty of the shot. A good shot gets rewarded , a poor or unlucky shot doesn't. Second is testing. Third is changing the lie of the ball. In a sand hazard (bunker) the lie can be significantly improved without moving the ball. This particular portion of the rule has been erroniously applied to sand in fairway divots. There the player is allowed to "lightly ground" the club as long as there is no improvement of the lie of the ball. There hasn't been a year go by that a player was ruled not to ground the club in that situation, and wrongly penalized for a good shot unluckily stopped."