On The Tee
With McAfee
Home Page
On The Tee
Purpose
History
Schedule
Scoreboard
Photo Gallery
USGA News
Entry Form
Information Request Form
About Us
Scholarship Information
Contact Us
You may not always want to find your ball
Why bother looking for this ball, anyway? I asked myself after hitting it into the woods and then hitting my provisional on the green on a par-3.
If I did find it and try to play it, it might take two or three shots to just get it back to the green. Or if it was unplayable, my only option would be to return to the tee, playing three, and try to duplicate the provisional.
Quickly, I said to my playing partners just to forget looking as the ball is obviously lost and that I'll just play my provisional.
My declaration that the ball is lost is meaningless, but I do not have to take five minutes to look for it either. However, my opponent or another competitor who thinks he is helping could look for it.
The cart path on this particular hole winds through the woods. Before I could get out of the cart, my riding companion spies a ball over to the right in the woods and calls out that he has found my ball. It's obviously mine, since my initials are right there in plain view.
I have no other choice but to abandon the provisional and either play the ball or take an unplayable lie. The ball is in the clear, but there are a lot of trees between me and the green. Just as I figured, I hit the trees three times before I could get the ball on the green, where I lay five--two more than my provisional. To make matters even worst, I three-putted for an eight.
If I had been involved in match play, a foot race would be likely. I would have been hurrying to the green while my opponent most likely would have been searching frantically for the ball. If he found it before I could putt, then I would have also been obligated to play the original ball. However, if I could putt first, then the provisional would be in play.
If I had not announced my intention to play a provisional and had just played another shot, then the ball would have been consider lost, even if found. However, that's something you do not normally do since you have no idea that you are going to hit that second shot any better than the first one.
The other case where a ball would be considered lost even if eventually found would be if you played the provisional ball from a spot nearer the hole than from the place where the original ball was likely to be.
So while you do have five minutes to look for a ball before it is considered lost, sometimes you may be better off not looking for it.
Also, remember there are situations where if there is reasonable evidence that the ball is lost in casual water, abnormal ground conditions or obstructions, then you are not penalized stroke and distance. Instead you can drop at the spot where the ball most likely entered that condition.