You can do everything right. You can plan for failure. You can even try to cover all the angles. But in an outdoor game, fate can still play a big role.
As this email poser will illustrate:
“My second shot ended up short left of the green near the carts of the group playing in front of us teeing off at the next hole. By the time we made it to where my ball should have landed, they had already left.
“We searched for my ball but could not find it. As I was about to take a drop, the group in front of us drove back to us and they had my ball. What had happened was, it must have hit the cart path and ended up on the floorboards of their cart. How do I proceed in this instance?”
You’ve got the ball back, so all is well. Or is it?
Lost ball rule: Replace the ball or take stroke-and-distance?
Let’s start with our old friend ‘known or virtually certain’. If you know, or are virtually certain, that an outside influence lifted or moved your ball at rest – that includes any person – there is no penalty and you replace the ball on its original spot.
This applies whether or not it is found and you can estimate if you don’t know exactly where that spot is.
Just to reiterate, known or virtually certain means there is “conclusive evidence” an event has happened – you’ve seen it or someone else has seen it – or it’s at least 95% likely it happened.
Does it sound like our emailer knows or is virtually certain? I’m not sure it does, principally because they spent a period looking for the ball, couldn’t find it and weren’t aware it had gone on a journey with the group in front until it was returned.
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So without that, it comes down to time. You know you’ve only got three minutes to search for a ball. If the group in front return the ball while that clock is still ticking then all is good. Replace and crack on.
If the sands have run out, though, the ball is lost and your only option is stroke-and-distance relief – even though you’ve got said ball back in your hands!
Here’s the crushing confirmation in Rule 9.6: “If it is not known or virtually certain that the ball was lifted or moved by an outside influence and the ball is lost, the player must take stroke-and-distance relief under Rule 18.2.”
Got a question for our expert?
Despite the changes to the Rules of Golf in 2019 and 2023, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. I’ll try to help by featuring the best of your queries in this column.
What do you think of this lost ball rule? Let me know by leaving a comment below, email me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or get in touch on X.
