Lost ball - stroke and distance, or 2 strokes?

Very Active Golfer Posts: 877 Join date: 2009-06-21

this means when ur p ball is in a good lie, do not attempt to look for the first ball.... hopefully the first ball is not visible to everyone...

Yup, take the penalty and move on. Don't let it worry you too much.

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"A ball will always come to rest halfway down a hill, unless there is sand or water at the bottom." Henry Beard

Golf Professionals Posts: 43 Join date: 2009-08-27

weesern wrote:

this means when ur p ball is in a good lie, do not attempt to look for the first ball.... hopefully the first ball is not visible to everyone...

I beg to differ from the view that give up the original ball without serching even if the provisional ball is in good position.

Say if you could find the original ball, there some possible scenarios as follow:
a. bad lie. you could always punch it out back to fairway and still save a stroke.
b. unplayable lie. you could take a penalty drop at spot and play the next shot back to fairway and you are likely not worse off than taking the provisional ball.
c. you will be only slightly worse off in the unlikely situation that the original ball is unplayable and there is no place for you to take relief; You will need to abandon the provisional ball and play a ball from the original position
d. the ball is out of bounds or lost, then you could continue to play with the provisional ball.

Do a calculation and you will see which is better option for you. Knowing rules will save you strokes as well.

In the meantime, practice hard.