It’s not every day we get a
ruling straight out of the Decisions book.
But sure enough in the first wave of the first round of the 2013 NCGA
Amateur Match Play Championship, we had a doozy.
On the first hole, a player hit his
tee shot left and he believed it could be lost, so he hit a provisional. They searched for the original and he found a
ball that he thought was his. He hit
that ball and picked up his provisional.
His fellow-competitor then mentioned that it could have been his
ball. Sure enough they went to check and
the player had hit his fellow-competitor’s ball. Since his original ball was lost, we were
staring at a four-stroke penalty situation, and the reasoning can be food directly
in Decision 27-2b/9.
The player hit his original ball
from tee. Because it was lost, he
incurred a stroke and distance penalty under Rule 27-1 and the provisional ball
was the ball in play lying 3. He then
hit a wrong ball incurring an additional two stroke penalty under Rule 15-3b and
the error had to be corrected. But he
had to correct it by playing his provisional ball, which he had lifted. Since he lifted his ball in play without
reason to do so, he incurred an additional one stroke penalty under Rule 18-2a
and the ball had to be replaced. It gets
better.
We’re done with the penalty strokes,
but now we have to get the ball back into play.
Since the exact original spot was not known, Rule 20-3c applied and a
ball had to be dropped at the estimated spot no nearer the hole. Once he did so he had a ball back in play and
was hitting his 7th stroke.
That’s why we have Rule 12-2 so you can always make sure it’s your own
ball.
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