Golf Ball Hunters

[Uthinkso]

I want to add to this. I've played with some people that look through the woods and tree lines while they are waiting for other players to hit. I find this very rude and inconsiderate.

Here I lining up my approach shot, and I have this guy in the woods like Tarzan tearing through trees and in general being a distrubance. Yet when that guy is up he expects it to be library quiet. Some people just need to put their clubs on ebay.

[CosmosMpower]

10 minutes? You guys have some patience. If I can't find it within 45 seconds to 1 minute I drop another and move on.

[MI Rob]

I also dont have the patience. I spend maybe 2 or so minutes looking for a ball, then I just drop and continue playing.

[Range King]

Well, one more facette of this story...

I was on a round with two guys, who seem to play together on a regular basis.

Whenever we passed a water hazard, they would stop, both of them get their ball retrievers (it seems they have more ball retrievers in the bag than clubs) and go ball fishing for about ten minutes.

I did not want to just abandon them and go on by myself, because I am new to the club and did not want to be rude, but I will deifnitely never play with them again.

Dom

[microcrayfish]

I play with people who can't seem to accept a lost ball and take forever to find them. I've almost started timing them so I can tell them that their 5 minutes is up so get another one out of the bag. I don't spend long looking for balls unless I'm by myself and there's nobody around, if there's a chance that I would hold anybody up, either my playing partners or others on the course, I'll only spend 2 or 3 minutes.

[flopdarock]

Whenever we passed a water hazard, they would stop, both of them get their ball retrievers (it seems they have more ball retrievers in the bag than clubs) and go ball fishing for about ten minutes.

that is hillarious... they must take about 6 hours to finish a round... the marshalls should have a field day with those guys...

the course i work at only employees hawk balls and never during play

[MiniMoe]

I think after the first time they took that long to find a ball I would have mentioned something about wanting to be finished before dark. If that did not work, I would have left there a**es looking for balls and finished the round.

Either that or just left and started to drink in the bar.

[Micr0n04]

I always laugh at this type of stuff. When i lose a ball in the woods my Father in law will help me look for about .3 seconds and then say "cant find it just drop one" BUT when he puts one in the woods, god forbid if we tell him to not worry about it.

[evanandpeaches]

If it takes longer than a minute to find I drop and forget about it

[misty_mountainhop]

What a joke. You're allowed 5 minutes; more than that and you must declare it lost, return to where you hit it from and hit another with a penalty shot included.

As others have said; think it's in trouble? Hit a provisional before you leave the place you hit the shank from! If it's not a 'serious' game I would let a partner drop a ball on the fairway just to carry on but the 5 minute max thing stands; especially if there's people behind.

Sorry to be daft, but what do you mean by provisional? I assume you hit a second ball from the tee box. Wouldn't it be better to drop a ball near where you lost the ball?

See above. If it's a comp then it's back to where you were and hit a second ball with a shot penalty included.

[Fraser]

Well, one more facette of this story...

When I was a teenager a friend of mine and/or my brother and I would do a

similar thing if there was nobody behind us. There was a field to the right of the 8th fairway where every sliced ball would end up, however there was only one entrance just past the teebox. We'd drop our bags at the stile then run the length of the field (maybe 240yrds in each direction) and back collecting about two dozen golf balls and carry on playing again. Well we were teenagers! I gave up doing that when I had golf course girlfriend that would give me the ones that landed in her garden.

[whit53]

Don't know where or not anyone else has made this comment, but as the saying goes....."If you can't afford balls, don't play the game." If it's a stipulated round or tournament, then go ahead a try to find it within a reasonable amount of time. Other than that, anything more than a cursory look is simply holding everyone up.

[Fat Slice]

I was playing the other day and went looking for a ball WAY down a hillside around a canopied running creek. Found the ball, hit it out safely back into the fairway....but....I saw about 50-100 balls in ONE spot in the creek. You'd have to be a nutjob to hike down to where I did to look for a ball, but I don't like taking penalty strokes if I don't have to! That course is expensive and the guys who play it are a bunch of Judge Smails. I find Pro Vs there ALL the time. I'm tempted to check out that stash the next time I play even though I am not a 'ball retriever' by nature. It was like finding the motherlode! I'd never slow down play, though.

[GaijinGolfer]

I spend no more than 1 or 2 minutes looking for a lost ball. I usually play balls that are pretty cheap (about $20 a dozen), so if I lose a few balls, its not all that big of a deal.
If I played balls that were more expensive ($40+), I might be more upset about losing balls, but IMO if you are someone who loses balls often, you really shouldnt be playing a, "pro" ball.