The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.
A fellow competitor and I both hit our drives into the left rough. While I was looking for my ball, the other player found what he thought was his ball and chipped out to the fairway. Eventually, three-plus minutes later, I started back to the tee under the lost ball rule…at which point the other player realized the ball he chipped out was mine. Can I replace my ball and play on with no penalty? Or does the three-minute search rule mean my ball was “lost”? Does the other player just go back to the tee and proceed, or is he also penalized for playing the wrong ball? – Chad Allred, via email
This is, well, a rough situation. Also unfortunate. The fact that you didn’t find your ball or learn the ball the other player had chipped out was in fact yours within the three-minute search time is the, er, driving factor here: Your ball is lost and your only option is to proceed under stroke and distance and go back to the tee.
This may be cold comfort, but your fellow competitor does still get a penalty for playing a wrong ball, and now he must correct his own mistake with an additional two penalty strokes tacked on to his score, per Definition of Lost, Rule 6.3c, and Known or Virtually Certain/3. His stroke at the wrong ball doesn’t count; assuming he didn’t find his own ball within any search time that remained to do so, he is hitting 5 off the tee.
For more lost ball-related guidance from our guru, read on …
A local course I often play has several permanent Ground Under Repair areas that have provoked discussion. If a ball is hit so far into one that it can’t be found, is it a lost ball, or does the GUR take precedence? – John Reed, via e-mail
Has all this GUR been designated a national park? It sounds quite impressive.
As to Rules ramifications, the issue boils down to certitude. If it is known, or virtually certain, that the ball is lost within the GUR — say, 95.012 percent likelihood or above, for you statistical types — then the player is entitled to free relief.
Use the point that the ball last entered the GUR, determine the nearest point of complete relief from there, and drop within one club length, no closer to the hole. If the player thinks that maybe the ball entered GUR (or just wishes it were so), the dreaded stroke-and-distance penalty applies.
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