What happens when your ball splits in two?

[jfrain2004]

At the weekend I was teeing off on a hole and had mistakenly teed up a ball I found in rough on the previous hole in place of my proper ball. I hit it a good smack and all I heard was "CRACK" the ball split in two and both halves went in opposite directions. I was told by my knowledgeable golfing buddies that that was tough luck and go take my third off the tee which I proceeded to do. I finished the round well back so it was not an important miss. However it got me thinking. What is the rule in this case? Should I have been penailzed at all? If the ball didn't split till I was chipping onto the green I figured I could have started putting with the half nearest the hole?

[Shanks A Million]

Your friends are dead wrong. You replay the shot without penalty as per rule 5.3:

If a ball breaks into pieces as a result of a stroke, the stroke is canceled and the player must play a ball, without penalty, as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was played (see Rule 20-5).

[Fozcycle]

That happened to me once......In the 1980's....I met some friends in Atlanta for a business meeting...we played the day before....weather was cool (60's) and started turning colder....into the 40's while we were on the course...Just before the storm blew in, I teed off on a 200 yd Par 3 over a pond. Half of the ball went into the pond, but the other half landed on the green.......We took it as a sign to quit before the bad weather set in and picked up for the day.

I remember when I struck the ball, it had a weird feel to it and a loud crack.

I just always assumed that I could play the half that landed on the green and replace the ball.

[Fourputt]

That happened to me once......In the 1980's....I met some friends in Atlanta for a business meeting...we played the day before....weather was cool (60's) and started turning colder....into the 40's while we were on the course...Just before the storm blew in, I teed off on a 200 yd Par 3 over a pond. Half of the ball went into the pond, but the other half landed on the green.......We took it as a sign to quit before the bad weather set in and picked up for the day.

The old rule stated that you dropped a fresh ball in the location where the largest piece of the original ball landed (or placed it if on the green), but that is no longer the case. The rule was changed a few years ago to what Shanks posted.