Cannot Play Provisional If Ball Is Found Question?

[iacas]

1 hour ago, StuM said:

if it is against the rules for the offical to offer unsolicited advice

No, and be careful as this isn’t “advice” as defined under the Rules. You’re using the common definition but trying to force it into the RoG.

20 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

A Referee is encouraged to intervene in order to stop a player from breaching a Rule, but that isn't a concern here.

I disagree. The player could find his ball and pick it up or fail to identify it because he likes the provisional more.

Juniors beach the rules here frequently.

20 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Does my discussion of the reasons for that suggestion end up becoming unsolicited advice to the player?

Question for you then: would you penalize a player if he says to another player “I wouldn’t go look for that if I were you”?

Do you think saying that is “Deciding how to play during a hole or round” or do you think it’s “information about the Rules”?

Does your answer change if he says “I wouldn’t go look for that if I were you because you’ll have to abandon your provisional if you find it”?

[StuM]

Thanks to both @DaveP043 & @iacas

51 minutes ago, iacas said:

No, and be careful as this isn’t “advice” as defined under the Rules. You’re using the common definition but trying to force it into the RoG.

Thx for pointing that out, I think what you are aluding to is informaiton of a factual basis, ie Yardage to a hazard, is not advice and thus what a rule says is simply quoting a fact.

I agree, even if it were deemed to be "Advice" who would you penalize?  They player did not ask for advice and what good is penalizing the rules official.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I disagree. The player could find his ball and pick it up or fail to identify it because he likes the provisional more.

Juniors beach the rules here frequently.

That only becomes an issue after he decides to search for the ball.  If he makes that decision, I'm likely to stay nearby to time the search, and would step in ass soon as he finds a ball that might be his.  I'll advise him that he MUST mark the ball before he lifts it to identify it, and if its his ball (lifted or identified where it sits), tell him that he may not proceed with the Provisional, that the Original Ball is the ball in play.  I agree that juniors generally have a less complete understanding of the Rules, I try to adapt my approach to the group of players I'm dealing with.

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Question for you then: would you penalize a player if he says to another player “I wouldn’t go look for that if I were you”?

Do you think saying that is “Deciding how to play during a hole or round” or do you think it’s “information about the Rules”?

Does your answer change if he says “I wouldn’t go look for that if I were you because you’ll have to abandon your provisional if you find it”?

Both of these are kind of on the border between the Rules themselves and how to play the hole.  A statement of the Rules is allowed as Public Information, but per Clarification Advice/3:  " But it is advice when the statement also contains information intended to influence a player in ....... deciding how to play during a hole or round."  Does the speaker intend to influence the Player's course of action?  If so, it sounds like advice.  Chances are that I'd have a discussion with both players, try to understand the speaker's intent, and warn them both to be careful about advice.  If the speaker says "I just wanted to make sure the Player understands the Rule" its not advice.  This is more difficult with the new version of the Rules, the intent of the speaker is a part of the definition of Advice.

I know you have more experience than I do, where do you come down on this?

This is pretty similar to me, to a player (or Referee) who sees a player about to take Lateral Relief from a PA, and stops him by saying "You know you can go back on the line, right?"  The way that's phrased, its a pretty strong suggestion that the Player making a poor choice of his relief options.  But is it strong enough to be penalized as Advice?

[p1n9183]

22 hours ago, Elmer said:

I am a little confused.
If the player finds their ball and choses to go back to the box and take a stroke and distance, why cant the provisional tee shot count as the ball in play and just tack on the stroke?
in this scenario I don't understand, with a playable ball out there having to go back and hit a third drive?

I know, it is the rules but it does not seem to speed up the game.

In a tournament atmosphere and in the name of speeding up the game, you are ok with taking the benefit of playing your 4th shot from the middle of the fairway using the provisional ball.
Would you do the same if the provisional ball was stuck behind a tree? would you make things worst for yourself in the name of speeding up the game? ... or would you hold up pace of play to go back to the tee and hit your 3rd from there?

 

[iacas]

38 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

That only becomes an issue after he decides to search for the ball.  If he makes that decision, I'm likely to stay nearby to time the search, and would step in ass soon as he finds a ball that might be his.

I think you'll find that won't always be possible, or true, etc. You might get pulled to another hole, told to stay between that tee and the previous green, etc.

Kids (and many adults) are pretty bad at understanding even the basic rules, as you know… so one could make a case that you're preventing a breach.

38 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I'll advise him that he MUST mark the ball before he lifts it to identify it, and if its his ball (lifted or identified where it sits), tell him that he may not proceed with the Provisional, that the Original Ball is the ball in play.

Again, this all assumes you get to stay right by him. That's a bad assumption IMO.

38 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Both of these are kind of on the border between the Rules themselves and how to play the hole.

I don't agree in the second case. He's clearly commenting on the rules there, I feel. The first might be borderline, but I'm not going to interrupt their round to have a talk with them about it, either, and I'll give the benefit of any doubt to the player that they're going to act with the honor and integrity and knowledge of the rules that are assumed.

38 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I know you have more experience than I do, where do you come down on this?

On the players, I said above: not worrying at all about the second, and absent a pattern or anything else in the first, not that one either. It's not the job of an RO to insert himself too often.

Re: the RO in the OP, we don't know exactly what he said, so it's tough to say if that was over-stepping a bit. I think he was likely just trying to prevent a breach or the idea of a breach in the future (a player who walks in and looks like he's going to identify his ball can pick it up before you know what he's doing because he knows his provisional is fine). So, I'm leaning heavily toward "also fine" particularly since he said it to the parents, who can not know the player's intent and who could screw the player over by finding his ball when he doesn't want it found. Many parents watching golf don't even really play, so I sometimes will make a rules comment to them, also knowing they can't really tell the player anything themselves because many junior tournaments have policies against parents talking to their kids when competing.

38 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

This is pretty similar to me, to a player (or Referee) who sees a player about to take Lateral Relief from a PA, and stops him by saying "You know you can go back on the line, right?"  The way that's phrased, its a pretty strong suggestion that the Player making a poor choice of his relief options.  But is it strong enough to be penalized as Advice?

Go down a road like that far enough and you can start to read things as "intended to influence their play" in all sorts of things. "Man, it's windy today" could be code for playing a knock-down shot, or taking an extra club… etc.

I think you have to give the benefit of the doubt until you're given a strong reason not to, or a pattern of smaller reasons.

[jlbos83]

In this thread I read a thing that I see in a lot of similar discussions.  It seems that a fair number of people call any ball other than the first played from the tee (and, to be fair other locations, though less often) a "provisional", even when it is not.  As is the case here.  If the player didn't want to play the ball in the woods, and went back to the tee that would not be a provisional ball, of course.  The location and status of both of the previous balls is known, there is nothing provisional about it!

 

[TapOut64]

Perhaps because this was a junior event with 13-18 year old golfers, he felt the need to educate the young golfers?  Just a thought.    

[iacas]

58 minutes ago, TapOut64 said:

Perhaps because this was a junior event with 13-18 year old golfers, he felt the need to educate the young golfers?  Just a thought.    

He "educated" the parents, though, not the golfers. Right?

[TapOut64]

On 8/23/2023 at 4:40 PM, iacas said:

He "educated" the parents, though, not the golfers. Right?

Yes, as my step son found his ball in play, there was not need for him to say anything to him.