a. Many of our fairways have bare spots; think about hole #8, South.
b. These areas should be marked as “ground under repair” but they aren’t.
c. Allowing a player to move his ball to the nearest grassy area, no closer to the hole, provides him the true benefit of a “fairway hit”.
Regardless of where the nearest grassy area is in relation to the ball, so long as it's no closer to hole and agreed upon by the playing partners, it only seems fair that if you hit a fairway you should be able to hit from the grass.