Rules Question: Water/Provisional

[RC]

I can surely relate to the local knowledge issue. There are places on my home course where no human would want to go look for a ball... We have rattlesnake dens in rock piles in the middle of thickets that even if you could find the darn ball, you would bleed to death getting to it and out again. We know it is lost even if we can see it. Plus there are wildcats and other critters in there. Sometimes I hit one in such places, and don't say a thing... just reach in my pocket and drop a new ball in play. We all know none of us is going in there to look for anything, not even gold bullion (well, maybe gold if I had a shotgun)

And, I remember some courses in Arizona and California where there are signs posted that say it is against the law to go into the area -- it is a protected zone. I remember once I could see my ball laying there, maybe 15 feet away. There were no OB stakes or hazard markers, and I was not sure what to do. The card only said we were not permitted to enter protected areas in search of balls. There were lots of balls out there, too. That course was pretty tight and it seemed unlikely that such narrow fairways would have OB on both sides in the middle of the course layout, but we were not sure.

In that case our foursome agreed to proceed (likely in violation of some rule, I don't really know) as if it was a lateral hazard and go back to the point of entry and drop with only one stroke and normal lateral relief. Since we did this without knowing the local rule (which turned out to be to it was a lateral hazard) I think we broke the spirit of the rules of golf by ignoring the USGA rules without proper clarification until after the fact. Probably should have played two balls, one from the tee, and clarified later. Admittedly, I am no rules expert.