Stroke and Distance on a Lost Ball

[Ignorant]

Well, I'm not sure whether you're asking about most likely score or net par score, since they're both used in different circumstances as Shindig addressed. The net par will probably have a minimal impact on your handicap. Yes, it's true that net par is better than you'll do on average, but not by much. Since you bias yourself toward your best scores when computing your handicap index, it means you've got a few rounds in there that are likely to be better due to a net par assumed score instead of a real score, but you will fairly often (~25% of the time) play to net par anyway, so I think the overall skew is really small. If anything it'll give you a lower handicap than you deserve, which is a penalty, so it's in your interest to play out. Seems like a reasonable arrangement.

Ok, I think I understood. Thanks!

[Shorty]

I'm not sure what you think I meant, but what I was saying was that the penalty would be distance. If you hit your tee shot out of bounds, you would hit another one from the tee, not from where it went out of bounds. If you hit one out from the fairway, you hit your next from the same spot, not where it went out.

I understand what you mean. You are saying that a wild slice which goes into a hazard ends up being penalised less than a shot which can theoretically be lost a foot in the rough. I get that. I have lost balls in the fairway to crows I didn't see and plugged in the middle of the fairway where you couldn't see it land. It's no fun playing your third shot from the tee when you have just hit what you thought was a perfect drive. The problem with a lost ball is that you don't actually know where it is. Hence the stroke and distance.

[Shindig]

I'm not sure what you think I meant, but what I was saying was that the penalty would be distance. If you hit your tee shot out of bounds, you would hit another one from the tee, not from where it went out of bounds. If you hit one out from the fairway, you hit your next from the same spot, not where it went out.

Because hazards are "places you aren't supposed to hit your ball" and out of bounds is "places we want to do all we can to prohibit you from hitting here." OOB is used for things like off the golf course and environmentally sensitive areas: places we, as a whole, want to keep golf balls from going. Hazards are in play and on the golf course, and thus are a lighter penalty.

[slide13]

If in any sort of competition, bet, etc. then one needs to play by the rules, end of story.

When I'm just out playing by myself or with friends however and a ball goes missing without a provisional in play then I just drop where I think it went and consider myself hitting four. This keeps the penalty value roughly equivalent to going back and re-hitting my tee shot and keeps the pace of play up. I do try to hit provisionals whenever I think there is a chance of a missing ball however, but sometimes there are just those unfindable balls for no foreseeable reason. When the course is busy I'm not going to walk the 200+ yards back to the tee box and start over as I feel I would be holding others up unfairly at that point.

[Dewdman42]

After thinking about this today I think i understand the logic behind the rule. stroke + distance for OB I have no problem with. The one that SEEMS unfair is stroke+distance for a lost ball. You hit it into the lake and suffer less penalty than 2 yards off the fairway into some scrub brush, that is usually much more prevalent then hazards on many courses.

but the problem is this. Let's imagine the rule was for just distance. The player would hit their provisional from the idealistic tee box and theoretically land it in the middle of the fairway, laying two. Hmm. If their ball went into some scrub brush, shouldn't they be challenged to hit it OUT of the scrub into the middle of the fairway in order to lay two? That seems fair. If they claimed their ball is lost in this hypothetical situation, then they would get an unfair advantage to try a second ball and avoid the scrub brush shot and still get to the fairway laying two. ideally there would be a way to make them play the shot out of the forest, from under the tree or whatever, but nobody really knows for sure where it is. In fact if you can't find it, its highly likely to be a difficult lay at the very least.

So actually, it is harsh, but stroke + distance makes sense for a lost ball.

Just keep in mind that in competitive play, everyone is playing with the same rules. If they lose a ball, they will have stroke + distance too, which is what makes it fair. Just don't lose a ball. I know, easier said then done for some. I think on certain courses with a lot of deep rough, its much harder for a duffer like me to hit my handicap, because a few lost balls will destroy my score for the round. So yea, its harsh, but if you really think about it, there is no other way around this rule because otherwise people would cheat and use provisionals to their advantage, which is what this rule prevents.

[golfaddiction]

This is an interesting thread. After reading it, I think a great compromise (in non tournament rounds) has been what many suggested: drop where you think the ball would have been, but take +2. This is equivalent to re-teeing and hitting a similar yet findable shot to the one you originally hit .

The only concern I have is that casual players are at a disadvantage because we don't have spotters like pros do. It seems unfair that pros will never incur such a penalty because others down the fairway are specifically watching their ball.

If I hit a good shot, see where it lands, then see someone else hitting my ball (and am 99%+ sure it was my ball), I am inclined to drop it without penalty. This is especially true if I find another ball nearby where mine landed (which presumably was the other person's ball).

[Dewdman42]

Yea seems to me when you aren't playing a tournament, then dropping the lost ball in the general vicinity where you think it went should be fine enough for most duffers. Probably, that shot out of the deep rough will be hard enough to be more challenging then playing a provisional, for duffers anyway. In my opinion that is more likely to line up your score to your handicap. If you take all the provisionals with stroke+distance, your handicap will quickly be higher than it should really be. Take that high handicap to a tournament where there are spotters to find your ball for you and you'd easily hit under your handicap, which really wouldn't be fair either.

That's assuming you are playing in tournaments where there are spotters. if there are no spotters, then you would rather have the higher handicap I would guess.

I think when I'm playing alone from now on, when i think I have lost a ball, what i will do is first watch carefully where the ball goes to have a reasonably good idea of the general vicinity, then I will hit the provisional just in case. Then I will head down and look for it. If I can't find it then I will probably drop the ball around where its lost, make sure not to go out of my way to get a line of sight through the trees or whatever. In fact with a lost ball I would say the only sorta fair thing for me to do in that case will be to try to punch it back out to the fairway without gaining any/much yards to the hole. That way I'm getting the stroke, not the distance, but at least I attempted the challenging shot out of the scrub brush or from under some trees or whatever as if someone found it for me. The extra price I'm paying is not being able to hit it further down the fairway towards the target, as opposed to if I had found it, then maybe I could have.

or if I really have no clue where it went and can't make a good guess, then I will play the provisional with stroke+distance.

I realize this is not the official rule, but I feel that will keep my handicap at a more realistic level for my potential level of play.

when playing in any kind of competition, then the stroke+distance rule should always apply for lost balls since that is the only way to avoid cheating and everyone must follow the same rule.