Provisional Ball Ruling

[Groucho Valentine]

On 10/6/2018 at 7:40 AM, Martyn W said:

@Groucho Valentine, you said this was a tournament; when you say "you let it go" does that mean you just posted the score and returned the card? If the committee was not informed that a second ball was played, the player is DQ.  "Before returning his score card, the competitor must report the facts of the situation to the Committee. If he fails to do so, he is disqualified."

Nobody is going to get DQ'd for that level of minutia in a club tournament...

[Martyn W]

12 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Nobody is going to get DQ'd for that level of minutia in a club tournament...

Which other Rules do you ignore?

[Groucho Valentine]

Just now, Martyn W said:

Which other Rules do you ignore?

The ones where you kiss my ass. 

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, Martyn W said:

Which other Rules do you ignore?

@Groucho Valentine thinks that it's cool that he ignores certain rules because "they're not fair" or "they don't make sense" (to him). He flaunts his ignorance as if it's a badge of honor.

Just ignore him, @Martyn W.

[Martyn W]

12 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

The ones where you kiss my ass. 

So that would be your response to a player who asks a legitimate Rules question? How do you expect to run a tournament when the committee picks and chooses which Rules to follow? 

[NM Golf]

Personally, in our club tournaments we follow each and every rule, we don't have the luxury of picking and choosing. This will on occasion make someone angry, but if playing by the rules makes someone that angry, you don't want them in your tournaments anyway. I hate it when people use ignorance as an excuse. I read the rule book, you can too. 

To play both balls, you have to follow a procedure; the player has to:

• Announce to his marker or fellow-competitor his intention to play both balls under Rule 3-3.
• Specify which ball he wishes to count if the Rules so permit. 
• Hole out with both balls (see Decision 3-3/8 for an exception).
• Report the facts to the Committee.

As far as the Provisional Ball rule is concerned, I am not sure people are understanding it. It was rewritten to the form it is now so if someone topped their provisional they could play it up to the point where they believed their original ball to ball to be without penalty. If you hit your original ball and your provisional ball into the same approximate area, then play your provisional, you have abandoned you original ball regardless of where the original might have ended up. The rule states if you play your provisional from where the original ball is likely to be or from a point nearer the hole than that place then the provisional ball is in play. The actual location of the two balls is irrelevant. Its from where you believe your ball to be not where it actually was. If you search for your ball in an area 230 yards off the tee, hit your provisional, then find your original 50 yards up the fairway because it hit two sprinkler heads then thats too bad, your provisional is the ball in play.

Edited October 9, 2018 by NM Golf

[ColinL]

2 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Nobody is going to get DQ'd for that level of minutia in a club tournament...

Try it at my club and find out.

[jimnm]

On ‎10‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 6:34 PM, jlbos83 said:

The big question is whether the second shot with the provisional was played from a point closer to the hole than the original was likely to be.  The actual location of the original ball is not important in making that determination.  From the wording of the original post, I am not certain that this requirement was met.  Only the original poster can really answer that question.

The answer to this question is no. As I stated in a follow up post (quoted below), the provisional ball landed short and right of the tree that the original tee shot was likely to have landed. 

 

On ‎10‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 12:12 PM, jimnm said:

 

I should have stated that I played the original ball within 5 minutes of reaching the provisional ball/area of the original tee shot. My provisional was short/right of the tree. I looked under the tree for my original and did not find it. So I hit the provisional. Then walked towards the green and ended up finding the original in front of the tree. Hopefully the original ball was the right play. 

 

 

[Fourputt]

3 hours ago, ColinL said:

Try it at my club and find out.

Mine too, and it is not even a private club... public course men's tournament club.  For some strange reason, we thought that they documented all of the rules because they intended that they should all be used.  What a silly idea!