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Originally Posted by Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Here's a question, and this is going to maybe involve bending rules some. You're on a busy course, and play a nice tee shot, making note of where it appears to end up. But for whatever reason, when you get up to the area, your ball can't be found.
Would you consider dropping a ball in the area you felt the ball was about? From there, you'd be hitting 4, as if you had hit a provisional to that spot, where the provisional would be laying 3? It could be cumbersome to go back to the tee to play the lost ball rule when you had no expectations of the ball being lost. |
There are a few ways to look at this. Strictly speaking, you should take your 5 minutes and when you don't find it, go back and re-hit. You'll be hitting 3 from the tee. That is how the Rules of Golf would like you to do it. If you were in a competition, that's what would need to be done.
That said, with time an issue, you could just drop and hit 4 from there as you had said "pretending" you went back and hit the exact same shot off the tee. I don't like this one so much.
Personally, I like to bend the Rules of Golf to conform to my situation. It's what I call the "gallery ball" rule. If you had a gallery watching you on both sides of the fairway, and volunteer forecaddies watching for where your ball landed, would you still have lost it?
The most hated thing in golf for me is hitting a good shot and just not finding it. 90+% of the time you hit a decent shot and find it. It's that small % of the time your ball just barely rolls into the rough, or finds its way under a leaf, and you don't find it even though you know it's there. Tour players will find 100% of these balls, or have them found for them before they even get there.
Now you have to be honest in order to use this rule. It's a judgement call. If you knock it into the woods and try to call a "gallery ball", that's a bit of a misuse. It's for when you know EXACTLY where it is, and should find it, and just can't.
Why should just the tour pros have ALL the advantages.
This "gallery ball" rule is actually in the Rules of Golf, only not explicitly stated. It's Rule 18-1: Ball acted upon by and outside agency.
On my course, there are more than a few blind landing areas that long hitters can get to. Also, there are a lot of old guys that will pick up any ball they see if no one is visible within 30 yards. That's right. 30. I've been 50 yards away and WALKING TOWARD my ball in a shared rough when I saw the guy look over at me, look down, pick up a ball, and put it in his pocket and start walking. I had to call him on it and almost had to deck the bastard to give me my $3.50 V1X back. This is not an isolated incedent. You will lose more balls on my course to other people's pockets than you will to all hazards, trees, and OB's in a year's time. If you are long.
Anyway, since these are blind landing areas, occasionally you may hit into the group ahead of you if they straggle behind a bit, or top a shot when you can't see them etc. As some of you may know, these asses don't like to get hit into, and sometimes pick up your ball. Should I really have to go back to the tee and hit 3 when I absolutely KNOW I would have been center-cut around the dogleg? Rule 18-1 says if I feel, and have evidence, of an outside agency taking my ball, I am allowed to drop where I thought it would have lied without penalty.
This is for everyday golf and pace of play. If you were actually in a tourney, you would have to go talk to the jerks ahead of you and ask them if they have seen, or took your ball. Let me tell you, the answer is always NO, and you end up going back to the tee to hit 3. I know this because it has happened way, way, way more than once. In those situations you have to rule out an outside agency because in golf you have go on the assumption everyone is being honest. Which you know they weren't.
On your normal whack-around Sunday round, are you going to take the time to go confront these jerks and get in a fight. I doubt it. So you invoke Rule 18-1, take your free drop, and continue with your round.
Yes, it is a little bit of a stretch to make the assumption that on outside agency is always at play when you lose your ball in the fairway or the light rough. Then again, the pros don't lose those balls due to all the eyes and TV camera's, and FORECADDIES, watching for where the ball lands. If we had that, we'd never lose a ball unless it went in a hazard, the woods, or OB either.
When was the last time you saw a tour player actually lose a ball that wasn't a British Open with their tricked up heather, and Gorsh? I'd say the last one I saw was when Greg Norman hit it over the green on the Par 3 12th at Augusta a few years back. He hit it right into the bushes above the green and never found it. The only reason he didn't find it is there's no gallery back there. Thus, no gallery ball.
I've only played 3 rounds in my life with Forecaddies, and I'll tell you, it was ****ing wonderful! Didn't lose a ball all day. Hit it into the trees? Not a problem, they heard, and saw, which tree it hit from 40 yards instead of 260 yards. When it rolls into the 2nd cut, they are standing right there and it almost hits them. It's awesome.
Tour players get this advantage each and every round they play. Play how the pros play, I say.
Just something to think about as the leaves start falling and more balls disappear under them.