A hacker's scoring question

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

The last round I played, I blocked/pushed a 3I clearly out of bounds on the 9th tee. I then re-teed, and hit, which if I've got this correct, that hit had me laying 3 in the fairway.

If I'm making note of penalty strokes, is that 1 or 2?

I'm thinking 2, because if not for the errant first try from the tee, I would have had a 5 on the hole, instead of the 7 I ended up with.

[VtDivot]

You are correct.

Your 3rd shot was the 2nd teeball you hit

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Thanks. The stroke-and-distance penalty for OB is nasty.

Okay, then, though, now say I had hit it into a water hazard instead, where I could have dropped within 2 club lengths of the hazard line, no closer to the hole. I'm dropping stroke 2, and hitting 3. But that only tallies up as 1 penalty stroke?

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Oh I see it now. With OB, I'm being assessed a penalty like a drop, plus I'm losing all the distance of the stroke, those are the 2 penalty strokes.

With a water hazard, I'm not losing the distance of the stroke that got me in the hazard, so I'm only tallying up the penalty of dropping.

[Silver]

exactly...took me awhile to figure out the same

[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.

[Silver]

I think that's pretty common practice...there's no way the guys behind us would accept us running back to play a lost ball when the public courses around here are as busy as they are.

[Rockford35]

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.

Well, the first ball should cost you 2, the drop one, so you're lying 3, shooting 4. But for the sake of keeping pace, your 3 shot rule works fine, except in competitive situations.

R35

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Yeah, excluding officially competitive situations of course, and only when pace of play is a concerning issue. If you lose the ball, and the course isn't packed, you should go back and play, and face the same situation that got you into trouble.

[VtDivot]

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.

This is correct... except drop that ball in the middle of the fairway. You certainly WOULD have hit your provisional dead nuts 320 yards...

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Well, 310 for me, I'm not that long.

[Rockford35]

This is correct... except drop that ball in the middle of the fairway. You certainly WOULD have hit your provisional dead nuts 320 yards...

Onto a tee....

R35

[Augster]

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.

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Yeah, it's frustrating those times when you know you hit a good shot, and the ball seemingly disappears, and it's something that a golfer playing with a gallery doesn't have to worry about too much. Where'd that ball go? "Hey, it's here, it almost hit me. It's sitting down in the thick stuff, but I got to see it and it's here."

Heh.

Do any of the computer golf simulations ever simulate a player's ball being lost? Wouldn't that be a funny message? "You spend 5 minutes searching for your ball, but it couldn't be found, you must go back and hit."

[ualtim]

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.

A little off of subject, but it reminded me of a ball I almost lost after just missing a hole in one. This incident happened almost 20 years ago, but I still remember it to this day as it was the closest I ever came to hitting a hole in one. I was up on the tee of #16 which was about a 150 yard Par 3 with a tee box that was elevated about 50 to 60 feet above the green. While we were waiting for the green to clear, a shot from the adjacent fairway rattled around the trees in between the green and the fairway and landed about 20 yards away from the green but we could see it from the tee and it was a WHITE ball. There was another group on the tee as play normally backed up on the short par 3 so when the group in front left the green I stepped right up and hit a beautiful shot that is locked on the pin the whole way. The ball bounced 3 feet in front of the pin, hit the pin, and stopped 6 inches if front of the hole. I could not have been prouder! There was my ORANGE ball (it was the 80's I remind you) six inches from the hole. I turned around and got high fives from my friends and the group that was waiting behind us. My friend went to tee it up and was taking a practice swing when this guy emerges from the woods from the other fairway and heads toward the green. My friend stops his routine as this idiot does not seem to notice that someone was about to hit onto the green that he is about to step onto. The guy bee lines right for the flag and PICKS UP MY ORANGE GOLF BALL and turns away heading back to the woods and the other fairway. I was speechless, but the guys in the group behind start shouting at the idiot to put the ball back. He turns and says that it was his ball and he is taking it with him. One of the more vocal guys in the group behind us shouts back to the guy to look about 10 feet in front of him towards the woods and look for the WHITE golf ball that he hit there and to return the ORANGE ball to the green. The idiot walks over, picks up his WHITE ball, and tosses my ORANGE ball back on the green about 40 feet from the pin and returns to the woods and the other fairway.

I was a young teenager at the time and did not quite know the rules, but I was quite saddened that I now had a 40 foot putt rather than a 6 inch putt. Expressing my displeasure in the situation, one of the guys explained to me that I could replace the ball back to its original location because there was the "idiot" rule and since an idiot had moved the ball I could move it back without penalty. I thanked them for their help, and went down and knocked in my birdie.

Long story short, I have used the "Idiot" rule since when it comes to lost balls. If someone in my foursome hits a ball that we can see land off the tee on open ground that some how disappears as the group playing on the adjacent hole passes through the same area, the "Idiot" rule is invoked and the ball is replaced with no penalty. Similar to losing a ball in casual water, an Idiot has casually stolen your ball so you should be allowed to contiue without penalty.