Picking up a provisional ball that was actually in play

[naval2006]

This happened yesterday at our club during our Saturday tournament. 

 

On the fifth hole a player drives right to the trees. As he didn’t see the ball fall or go through he plays a provisional ball. We both walk to the area of his first ball, I had hit to the same spot.  There’s a ball under a tree, player identifies it and proceeds to pick up provisional ball while we were waiting to play. 

 

When he reaches the first ball he inspects it and realises that was not his ball in reality. Same number, same mark under the number, but not his brand. 

 

So now the player has the first ball lost and the provisional ball picked up. This had always been disqualification until now. 

 

With the new set of rules a lot of things have changed during play. A told the player to replace the provisional and hit because I was sure that was not disqualification anymore. We finished and checked the rules and a qualified rules official clarified the issue:

 

under rule 9.4 the player replaces the provisional and plays their fifth shot.  

 

I’m part of the rules committee at my club and a few weeks earlier I had attended a workshop by our regional Federation where all these changes were discussed. But I must admit it wasn’t easy to make the tournament guys and some of the seasoned players understand how this guy was not disqualified. This Senior rules official that we always contact had as usual the last word. 

 

I think this was not a very difficult ruling, but the spirit of the rules has changed so much since last year that the more experienced players are kind of stuck in the rules we’ve played under for the past 30-40 years. Not an easy change to assimilate.