Have you ever lost a ball in the fairway?

[Missouri Swede]

I almost lost one today on a cart path.

First hole, drive goes to the left rough, and I see it roll onto the cart path and into water on the cart path (heavy rains the last 2 days).  I get up there, see the water is muddy and murky.  Stick a club in it, it's about 4-5 inches deep.  Move the club around, trying to find the ball for a minute or two.  Can't feel it.  Figure I'm about to have a lost ball on my opening drive, but then I see it's in a shallower part of the water about 5 yards farther on than I thought.

[WUTiger]

No. 16 at The Orchards in Belleville, IL. This was a short par 4 that ran through the low part of the course, with a creek to the right of the fairway that bent around in front of the green.

It used to get really soggy after a day of rain. I hit a nice high iron off the tee, and saw it hit with a splash in the fairway. I took the cart down the path next to the ball (cartpath only), got out, and sank up to my ankle in mud one step off the cart path.

Basically, the hole was unplayable, and my ball was not visible above the surface of the fairway - it was embedded in the mud.

At the clubhouse, the pro told us to take a bogie for a score.

Since then, the course spent big $$ to raise the fairway, install drainage tiles under it, and increase the water capacity of the creek.

[Fourputt]

I've certainly lost balls when I couldn't see any reasonable way that they could have been lost, but I can't say definitively that I've lost a ball that I knew was in the fairway.  Not on a clean fairway.  I had to assume that I was mistaken in my impression that the ball stopped on the fairway.  

I've seen balls take ridiculous bounces off sprinkler heads, and even from fairway distance markers, so I've never just assumed that what I thought I saw from 250+ yards away was what actually happened.

[jkelley9]

Absolutely have lost ball in the fairway. Often times it's because my eyes aren't very good at finding them in the first place. I typically score better in company because people are able to find my ball for me a couple times a round lol.

I actually find that this is the most frustrating part of golf, because you do something well and you're penalized hard for it. Slow pace is annoying, missing a 3-footer, etc. But losing a ball in the fairway probably has the biggest mental impact going into my next shot or the next hole.

[allenc]

On 5/16/2017 at 6:38 PM, freshmanUTA said:

Oh and, yes. I definitely saw it roll and come to a stop, and so did my dad.

Wait, rules question.  Everyone is saying lost ball penalty, but if you definitely saw where it came to a stop in the fairway then it was gone when you got there, isn't it virtually certain an outside agency moved it?  Does this have to be played as a lost ball?

[David in FL]

29 minutes ago, allenc said:

Wait, rules question.  Everyone is saying lost ball penalty, but if you definitely saw where it came to a stop in the fairway then it was gone when you got there, isn't it virtually certain an outside agency moved it?  Does this have to be played as a lost ball?

Of 2 possible options, which is more likely?

That from several hundred yards you were able to see exactly where a 1.68" diameter ball stopped, but were unable to see the dog/bird/coyote/small child/whatever that subsequently took it....

...or that your ball slid into the rough, or finished under a leaf, or in a sprinkler head, whatever.

Does the former sound "virtually certain", in light of the latter?

[Fourputt]

1 hour ago, allenc said:

Wait, rules question.  Everyone is saying lost ball penalty, but if you definitely saw where it came to a stop in the fairway then it was gone when you got there, isn't it virtually certain an outside agency moved it?  Does this have to be played as a lost ball?

You can't assume that the ball was taken by something you couldn't see.  There must be evidence to support it.  Under the rules, the ball is lost and the player must continue under penalty of stroke and distance.

[boogielicious]

7 hours ago, David in FL said:

Of 2 possible options, which is more likely?

That from several hundred yards you were able to see exactly where a 1.68" diameter ball stopped, but were unable to see the dog/bird/coyote/small child/whatever that subsequently took it....

...or that your ball slid into the rough, or finished under a leaf, or in a sprinkler head, whatever.

Does the former sound "virtually certain", in light of the latter?

The only time I was certain was when I hit it into a flock of geese in the middle of the fairway. It was a downhill shot, so I had a great view of the thieving grass-eating poop machines.

But when I don't have that scenario, you have to assume it was not where you though it was and it is lost. S&P.

[David in FL]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

The only time I was certain was when I hit it into a flock of geese in the middle of the fairway. It was a downhill shot, so I had a great view of the thieving grass-eating poop machines.

But when I don't have that scenario, you have to assume it was not where you though it was and it is lost. S&P.

Ha!  I hate geese!

Even then, absent seeing a goose actually pick up the ball, I'd have to at least consider that the ball bounced off one of the damn birds and ended up somewhere else.   

[RayG]

If you have ever played in the NYC area at one of their courses, it's a normal occurrence. It isn't "lost"- it's in the pocket of that guy who wandered in to YOUR fairway looking for HIS ball. He played it and moved on.

Also snake holes... at least when I played in Virginia Beach area. lots of snake holes...

[rehmwa]

Another thing is to look at the lay of the fairway.  Lots of examples, but my most recent was a shot that was just lasering down the left center.  NO WAY was that ball going to be lost.

Got up there and it's nowhere in sight.  But, some idiot missed HIS fairway and his ball was in my fairway about 40 yards farther than where MY ball SHOULD be and way over to the right.

(I was that idiot, the drive was better than I thought, the ground much harder and the fairway fed into the sport on the right half).

Short answer - unless you actually see the ball come to a stop and is sitting there (some days it's VERY easy to see) - you don't really know until you get there.  Take your medicine.

[allenc]

16 hours ago, David in FL said:

Of 2 possible options, which is more likely?

That from several hundred yards you were able to see exactly where a 1.68" diameter ball stopped, but were unable to see the dog/bird/coyote/small child/whatever that subsequently took it....

...or that your ball slid into the rough, or finished under a leaf, or in a sprinkler head, whatever.

Does the former sound "virtually certain", in light of the latter?

 

16 hours ago, Fourputt said:

You can't assume that the ball was taken by something you couldn't see.  There must be evidence to support it.  Under the rules, the ball is lost and the player must continue under penalty of stroke and distance.

Ok, just a silly hypothetical.  What if you found and walked up to your ball in the fairway, but before you hit it nature called and you ducked behind a tree to relieve yourself.  When you returned to where the ball was it was gone.  Lost ball or something moved it when you turned your back?  (It might have been one of your partners to punish you for your uncourteous slow play.)

[Fourputt]

1 hour ago, allenc said:

 

Ok, just a silly hypothetical.  What if you found and walked up to your ball in the fairway, but before you hit it nature called and you ducked behind a tree to relieve yourself.  When you returned to where the ball was it was gone.  Lost ball or something moved it when you turned your back?  (It might have been one of your partners to punish you for your uncourteous slow play.)

This is a hypothetical the likelihood of which is so remote as to be unanswerable.  When this happens to you, I'd just recommend that you make a decision based on the situation and the guys you are playing with.  If it happened in a tournament, I'd invoke Rule 3-3 and play 2  balls, one from the spot where my first ball disappeared, and one under stroke and distance, claiming the score from the first one to count if the committee ruled in my favor.  This is really the only possibility on such an unlikely scenario.

[Tee Wade]

Happened to me 3 times.  First time was early in the morning and I spent quite a bit of time looking for it.  My partner was certain it landed in the middle of the fairway and the flight was straight, maybe a 2 yard draw.  The other two times, I'm certain the ball was picked up by people playing on another fairway.  This particular course has fairways adjacent to each other.  It's pretty common for guys on the first tee to slice it into the 9th fairway and come pick up 'extra' balls while they're over there.

[DrvFrShow]

It's stroke and distance unless it is in the fall and the course has a local "leaf rule" in effect.

I've had this happen in the fall.... I hit the ball it and I've found the ball. Then I go get my club. When I return to the spot of the ball it's gone. We can't find it because some bloody leaves blew over it. It's somewhere here, but now we can't seem to find it at all. Move some leaves drop a ball and hit. It just doesn't vanish like that. 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2017 by DrvFrShow

[jkelley9]

So I'm proud to report that I'm officially in the "animal stole my ball" club!

I played the senior tees this afternoon and on a long uphill par 4 I hit a 2h from the tee, beautiful shot, center fairway in the perfect landing area. 

As I'm walking up to my ball huffing and puffing (this is a super steep hill), I see a FOX dart out from the right, right across the landing area, stop in front of my ball, not even sniff the thing, pick it up, and run away! The son of a biscuit even LOOKED at me briefly has he was high-tailing it off the fairway! I laughed so freaking hard watching him with the ball in it's mouth like it had caught a tasty fish or something. He didn't even drop the ball, he want 2 fairways over and I lost sight of him.

[Aguirre]

Sure, balls plug sometimes. This happened to me today, but I found it. I just love the rules guys who say stroke and distance. If somebody in any of my groups quite clearly hit the fairway, and you insisted they drive back to the tee box to take stroke and distance, you'd never be invited back again, and you're a horrible person. Formal competitions are a different matter, of course.

[Vintage]

What's the USGA rules say when you hit your shot, you clearly see it land in your fairway... And watch someone in a cart cross over to your fairway and pick up your ball and take off because they didn't see you and they thought they just found a ball?

I can tell you what I did. 

I walked back and hit another tee shot. And no, I didn't penalize myself because I wasn't awarding a penalty to myself over my ball being stolen.