How long do you look for a ball?

The rules use to be 5 minutes. Now it's 3 minutes in the spirit of faster rounds. How long do you look for a ball?

And how many of you just drop the ball in the general area where you think it was lost and go from there after looking for 30 seconds?

If I know it’s in play, but I just can’t see it in the rough I’ll drop it if the course is busy.

I usually do a slow roll by in the cart and if not easily visible then just drop one. Courses been pretty busy lately

our group , most will adhere to the 3 minutes. I’m a little mor persistent on those I’m sure should be found . The wishful I’m not so inclined. Less time on my own ball though.

In casual rounds, yeah - if not easily visible, I'll just drop in the general area I think it is and go; mainly just to keep up pace of play.

I usually check for a few minutes tops. Not worth holding up a round and especially in the Phoenix summer heat. :(

Thanks,

Jeff

I'll check for a couple of minutes unless there are people waiting behind me. Since I walk, I don't go back to the tee and just drop from the vicinity that I think the ball landed and give myself a one stroke penalty.

2 minutes max and then a ball gets dropped in the vicinity no closer to the hole hopefully.

As long as it takes. If I cannot find it, I walk the hole, in shame.

I don't know many people that actually follow the Lost Ball rules and walk back to the spot last played, add a stroke, and play from there. Hopefully most people remember to hit a provisional to at least prevent the walk and play things as intended.

A lost ball and O.B. are just as bad, and sometimes it's really unfair how penal the lost ball is. I've had lost balls that were absolutely down the middle of the fairway and you get out there and there's no ball. Whether buried from soft conditions or someone simply picked it up, and you're left with a decision. Things that, to be honest, would never happen on the pga tour.

If it looks to be in doubt on the shot then I'll hit a provisional to be on the safe side and generally don't look very much for potentially lost balls. If a ball mysteriously vanishes then it is a drop at the most likely drop point and taking the 2 stroke hit playing on from that spot.

Any answer to this question seems to be totally dictated by context and/or circumstance.

During casual round on a busy course with folks backed up behind me, I'm not going to look very long. I'll throw down a ball, penalize myself, and move on.

In a competitive round or tournament, I'll look as long as the rules allow, and if I don't find it, I will proceed under the rules.

On an empty course in a causal round, I'll look until I find it or get sick of looking.

I'll look for 2-3 minutes if the course isn't too busy. They're growing out the rough at my course, so unless you hit the fairway, you can pretty much consider the ball lost.

Depends on how busy the course is and how good my round has been going!

My record is 30 minutes. It was a twilight round and the sun was setting, no one on the course and I'm blazing, front nine in about 1:20. So on 12 I pull a brand new Bridgestone from a sleeve and promptly hook it over 2 fairways into a forest. I hit a provisional and then go looking. After about 10 minutes I give up and play on, before finishing the round right around sunset. My ride hasn't shown up yet and the 12th hole is adjacent to the parking lot, so I trudge over to the forest and start searching for 10 more minutes and when when my ride does show up, they come out to help, and after 10 more minutes we find the ball. That is neither the first nor last time I have returned to an area of the course after a round to find a ball.

I. Cannot. Stand. Losing. Golf balls.

2 minutes max. I don't buy expensive balls so if I lose one in the rough here or there I just drop where I and others in my group agree is an appropriate approximate dropping point and play on. I have to say about 8 years ago when I first started playing people looking for balls was a real issue that caused a lot of slow play but it's been less of an issue the past 2 or 3 years. A couple things helped. More of your lower to mid range/muni courses in my area wised up and got rid of the 1st cut of rough and just made the entire rough a smidge longer than a 1st cut length instead of having a deep rough. This helps with pace because guys can find their errant tee shots and it isn't so penal where the best you can do is hack out. The higher end courses and country clubs haven't changed much but nor should they IMO as better players deserve a venue to fully test their game.

Many factors play into this - but if I i know the course well and think it should not be lost I will spend a full 3+ minutes looking for it.

I spend a couple minutes. I start to feel bad after that because people now adays are such whiners about slow play even when it's not that slow.

And to those who make you take a penalty when the ball clearly went in bounds and is just somewhere in rough...GFY. Glad I don't play with anyone like that.

Depends on how busy course is. No one around I will look for a while. Busy hardly at all.

3 min max if it’s a round in contention for under 80. Everything else gets the good once over for 90 secs or so

3 minutes. If it’s a casual round, I’ll use E5 after 3 minutes. If it’s a tourney, I return to the previous spot.

BTW, 3 minutes is nothing. It goes really quick and I time every search.

I wonder how many who just drop one nearby actually maintain a genuine handicap.

In the long grass I'll do a cursory search. If it's in the rough, I'll exhaust my time

There's a sliding scale for lost ball searches depending on the general pace of play, course conditions, and how cranky I happen to be feeling.

There's nothing worse than one of those rounds that have no flow whatsoever because you're searching for balls every hole. We play early in the morning and the blinding sun shining off the dew can make finding balls right down the middle of the fairway a challenge on some holes. It can be ridiculously frustrating.

If I'm pretty sure I know where it is but it's just hiding in long grass or in among some leaves and pine cones in the woods, I'll look for a minute or two. If I didn't follow it well enough to have a good idea where it landed, a quick glance as I'm walking but I don't stop and search. I'm generally playing in a points game so I just take zero and move on.

Our course is fairly open off the tee so not being able to find a ball happens maybe once a week (i.e. every three or four rounds). Even if I spent 2 minutes, 59.99999 seconds looking for every lost ball and managed to find one occasionally it wouldn't add up to much effect on my score. Life's too short to tramp around in the weeds looking for a ball you're probably not going to find anyway.

Most of my penalty strokes come from balls that land in one of the several ponds on the course and there's no finding those!

Yea, this. In a forum about rules the number of responses that indicate they just drop and carry on surprise me.

I play by the rules, and the people I play with do as well. I take pride in helping everyone to understand the rules, so I dont always have to be the one they come to. This includes the reason you should hit a provisional.

If the course is busy... 2 minutes tops. If it's empty, then up to 5 minutes when I am playing alone or with just 1 friend. In groups of 3-4 I revert back to 2 minutes regardless of how busy the course is.

Define "genuine".

A lot of people who just drop one nearby and carry on pay their yearly fee for GHIN, type numbers into the GHIN app and GHIN spits a number back out for them. The have an official USGA-sanctioned GHIN handicap, does that make it "genuine"?

I play in the late evening and the course is generally empty or I am behind a slow group so I look until i find mine and/or two or three replacements...never more than a few minutes.

It's kind of funny how the same brand (barely used) will keep showing up on any given evening. Last time I played it was a Srixon model...7 of them. Poor guy went home with a max of 5 from the dozen he bought that day. Anybody need any balls....I've got a few 5 gal buckets full in the garage.

For handicap purposes you're probably going to write down double or triple bogey anyway so not a big impact on handicap legitimacy.