Ball lost then found.....

[edwjmcgrath]

While most club pro's are good golfers and are pretty knowledgeable about the rules, few of them know the rules well enough to be an official.
When I sent the 2010 metropolitan rules quiz out to a bunch of friends, the highest score was my club pro who scored 25%.
Most officials will score 80% or higher.
I can't tell you how many times I've been told by a player that my ruling is incorrect and that his rules guru is a club pro.
This may be the source of Kev's frustration.

In this case, the player played the wrong ball when he played his second ball. If he did not correct it and hole out with the correct ball before making a stroke from the next teeing ground, he is DQ.
His second ball became lost either when he made a stroke at the third ball or 5 minutes was up.
If no one is timing the search, then all of the facts must be gathered and a decision rendered. If the player believed that 5 minutes was up and said so, and the other players agreed, that would be strong evidence. This is a pretty simple ruling that shouldn't take a lot of thought.

[atlanta golfer]

Wait a minute ....... I don't believe it is true that once you leave the tee (or other spot where the last ball was played) that you have lost your chance to hit a provisional. You only lose your chance to hit a provisional once 5 minutes of searching is up. Correct? In other words, you can certainly search for a minute, and then go back and hit a provisional, while other people continue the search. Correct?

 

 

27-2. Provisional Ball

a. Procedure

 

If a ball may be lost outside a water hazard or may be out of bounds, to save time the player may play another ball provisionally in accordance with Rule 27-1. The player must inform his opponent in match play or his marker or a fellow-competitor in stroke play that he intends to play a provisional ball, and he must play it before he or his partnergoes forward to search for the original ball.

 

If he fails to do so and plays another ball, that ball is not a provisional ball and becomes the ball in playunder penalty of stroke and distance

 

 

This is really good to know, thanks for the clarification and for citing the actual rule.

AG

[Augster]

[quote][color="#0000FF"][b]27/4 Time Permitted for Search for Original Ball and Provisional Ball[/b][/color]

Q. Is a player allowed five minutes to search for his original ball and five more minutes to search for his provisional ball, or just a total of five minutes?

A. If the two balls are so close together that, in effect, both balls would be searched for simultaneously, a total of five minutes for search is allowed. Otherwise, the player is allowed to search five minutes for each ball.
[/quote]


"So close together" seems a bit ambiguous to me and open to interpretation. How close is "so close". 10 feet? 10 yards? 20 yards? 50 yards?

The lord knows I have hit plenty of provisional balls in my life, and plenty of them have gone somewhat toward where the first ball was hit into trouble. But to not get the extra time to look, both those balls would have to be hit to almost exactly the same spot, which is tough to do.

Unless you pull-hook both into the same bush. Don't ask me how I konw.

At least the Pro at your course got the Ruling correct. Your opponent was lying 5 in the fairway. How he came to the conclusion, though, was incorrect. At least the hole was contested fairly.