golf rule question..

[eg92b16a2]

If you hit a drive and everybody in the group sees where the ball went and the location. But on your way up to the ball you see another group going the opposite way hit a ball near where you think the ball landed. After searching for the ball you find another ball that is not yours but was near where your ball should be. What is the ruling for somebody else in another group hitting your ball? Do you have to go back to the tee and rehit your tee shot and take a stroke penalty for lost ball? Take a stroke penalty at the spot where the ball should be and continue on? Or get a drop there with no penalty?

 

[Fourputt]

If you hit a drive and everybody in the group sees where the ball went and the location. But on your way up to the ball you see another group going the opposite way hit a ball near where you think the ball landed. After searching for the ball you find another ball that is not yours but was near where your ball should be. What is the ruling for somebody else in another group hitting your ball? Do you have to go back to the tee and rehit your tee shot and take a stroke penalty for lost ball? Take a stroke penalty at the spot where the ball should be and continue on? Or get a drop there with no penalty?

That's a tough situation. Since most of us play public courses, and often busy public courses, we have to use our best judgment in a case like this. I've had it happen, and we usually go by the consensus within the group as to whether it's likely that the ball was taken by the other guy. By the Rules of Golf, it's a question of fact whether it happened, i.e., you have to be certain that it happened. In actual practice, we have played it a bit more loosely than that, trying to use common sense. If there is simply no possible place for the ball to be lost, and if another player hit a ball from that location, leaving ball that isn't yours behind, then I think it's reasonable to make a ruling in favor of the player, and drop a ball in that location without penalty.

I guess it depends on how strictly you want to take the rule, and on how the rest of your group wants to play it.

 

[eclark53520]

That's a tough situation. Since most of us play public courses, and often busy public courses, we have to use our best judgment in a case like this. I've had it happen, and we usually go by the consensus within the group as to whether it's likely that the ball was taken by the other guy. By the Rules of Golf, it's a question of fact whether it happened, i.e., you have to be certain that it happened. In actual practice, we have played it a bit more loosely than that, trying to use common sense. If there is simply no possible place for the ball to be lost, and if another player hit a ball from that location, leaving ball that isn't yours behind, then I think it's reasonable to make a ruling in favor of the player, and drop a ball in that location without penalty.

I guess it depends on how strictly you want to take the rule, and on how the rest of your group wants to play it.

+1

really no other way in a casual round to play it 100% by the rules. This is pretty much the common sense way around it.

 

[N.V.M.]

Buttercup rules huh?

 

[Wi-Golfer]

If anyone takes a penalty because some asshat in another group hit & played their ball, well then they are a bigger idiot than the clown playing the wrong ball.

 

[N.V.M.]

i think this covers it:

Rule 18-2 “If a ball at rest is moved by an outside agency, there is no penalty and the ball must be replaced.”

 

[gwlee7]

If anyone takes a penalty because some asshat in another group hit & played their ball, well then they are a bigger idiot than the clown playing the wrong ball.

I don't know why this struck my funny bone the way it did but, I LOL'd. I guess it's the word "asshat" that gets me laughing.

 

[fisher]

Here's one,

Last month my son and I tee off on the first hole. (Brand new ProV) I rip one way down the center of the fairway. As we are leaving the tee box a cart comes from a hole over, sees my ball in the fairway, drives over picks it up and starts driving away with it in the oposite direction of the hole he is on. I have no idea what this guy was thinking!!!! So I'm running after him whistling as loud as I can for him to stop. Finally the guy sees me and loops back and throws my ball back in the fairway. No sorry, No wave, no nothing. The guy then takes off on the cart and disapears. He apparently wasn't even playing the hole he was driving on. He just saw an unattended ball on the course and took off with it.

So what's the rule? Play it as it lies? Go back where you think it was? Kind of reminds me of the seagull that dropped a players ball in the drink at TPC Sawgrass years ago.

 

[Augster]

If you are in a "casual round" i.e. not playing by the Rules of Golf, then do what you like.

In a tournament round last weekend, the OP's dilemma happened to a friend of mine. He was playing a Callaway IX and found a Top Flight about where his ball might have been.

Since we absolutely didn't KNOW for a fact that it was his ball the guy might have played, Rule 18-2 didn't apply. So I told him he had better go track the guy down and ask him what ball he was playing and ask to see the ball he had in play now.

As Fourputt stated, it is a question of fact whether you can use Rule 18-2. If you see your ball down, i.e. physically see your ball lying in the other fairway, then someone come over to that ball and take or hit it, then yes, Rule 18-2 does apply.

But if you can't see your ball, i.e. lying in high rough or somesuch, or you only kind of know the direction it went and "should" lie, then you obviously aren't 100% certain of where your ball is.

In all cases where Rule 18-2 does not apply, you have the definition of Lost Ball. i.e. your ball is lost. Take a penalty and go back to your previous spot to replay.

In my friend's case, and in Fisher's case, where the guy admitted to hitting the incorrect ball and gave the ball back, and Fisher's guy threw the ball back, you try to recreate the lie you had as near as you can guess to where it actually was before it was moved.

If you walk up to the guy that may have taken your ball, or played it, and he says, "No I don't have your ball" then you have a lost ball as golf is a game of honor and a player's word has to be taken as truth.

Again though, in a casual round, do what you like. I will go back and rehit if I have money on the line, but if I'm out by myself in a practice round, I'll just call it 18-2 as that is most likely what happened.