Lost Ball?

[Schulzmc]

Playing in our season long match play tournament, my opponent and I both hit our drives on the first hole. Both were on the left edge of the fairway, over a rise and not visible from the tee. I have played with this guy a lot, and know I normally outdrive him by 10-30 yds. He and I also believed his ball was a little more left than mine. As we crest the rise we see one ball in the first cut, and no other ball visible. We both assume that the visible ball is mine and begin looking for his ball in the rough short of my ball. After three minutes we do not find his ball. He is about to head back to the tee when I walk up to my ball... and realize it is his ball. I almost immediately see my ball a few yards further forward in the thick rough. 

 

Here is the question: he contends that the three minutes for searching for my ball have already elapsed. The fact that we thought we were searching for his ball is irrelevant. We knew where one ball was, and were searching for the other and did not find it within the allowed time. I contended the moment we realized my ball was the one lost the clock began on a new search for my ball. 

 

I conceded the hole and we moved on to #2. I ended up winning the match on 18 so the final result was not affected. Our pro said he could see both sides of the argument.

 

What say you all?

Edited March 22 by Schulzmc

[bcjim]

You spent 3 minutes looking for HIS ball and failed to find it. (Even though it was right there). 

 

Actually, I don't know, but if it was a match I would probably have just conceded the hole rather than walk and hit 3.

[DaveLeeNC]

You were looking (explicitly, even if ineffectively) for HIS golf ball. You were not looking where you thought YOUR golf ball would be. I don't see how that time can qualify as time spent looking for YOUR golf ball.

[rogolf]

All contentions aside, his ball is lost, your ball is not lost.

Either of you had every opportunity to look at and identify the ball that was visible.

Operator error!

Edited March 22 by rogolf

[SteelieD]

2 hours ago, Schulzmc said:

What say you all?

Your opponent is an a $$ hole. 

[Shankyouverymuch]

Gotta love the ruling by the Pro - " I can see both sides"

[Newby]

2 hours ago, Schulzmc said:

Our pro said he could see both sides of the argument.

 

What say you all?

I guess he'd just failed the rules section of his PGA membership qualification.

I'll say that to the player at my next event.

 

But his ball was lost, yours wasn't.

[cassel191919]

First off I wouldn't play with your playing partner again unless it was a match. I would honestly like to know what the actual ruling is, because if you spent the time looking for his ball and he didn't bother checking the one sitting there I would think it was his ball that would be considered lost.

[ShortGolfer]

As I see it searching for his ball and your ball are distinct events.

 

Experienced golfers know where to look for their ball.  I've only been golfing for two short New England seasons and know where my misses usually end up relative to a properly  executed swing.

[betarhoalphadelta]

3 hours ago, rogolf said:

All contentions aside, his ball is lost, your ball is not lost.

Either of you had every opportunity to look at and identify the ball that was visible.

Operator error!

 

I think I'm actually getting something out of this, but nobody has explicitly said it...

 

The belief was that the players were searching for non-OPs ball. They were searching for that ball for >3 minutes, therefore the ball is deemed lost. 

 

Is what you're saying that despite the fact that non-OP's ball was RIGHT THERE in plain view, and simply hadn't been identified, that non-OP would not be able to play that ball as it lies as his second stroke, and must take penalty relief for a lost ball? 

 

If that's the case, that's hilarious. So not only would OP not be penalized because the three minutes were spent looking for someone else's ball, but non-OP would be penalized for spending three minutes looking for a ball that was in plain sight the whole time. 

[Mr. Bean]

4 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

I think I'm actually getting something out of this, but nobody has explicitly said it...

 

The belief was that the players were searching for non-OPs ball. They were searching for that ball for >3 minutes, therefore the ball is deemed lost. 

 

Is what you're saying that despite the fact that non-OP's ball was RIGHT THERE in plain view, and simply hadn't been identified, that non-OP would not be able to play that ball as it lies as his second stroke, and must take penalty relief for a lost ball? 

 

If that's the case, that's hilarious. So not only would OP not be penalized because the three minutes were spent looking for someone else's ball, but non-OP would be penalized for spending three minutes looking for a ball that was in plain sight the whole time. 

 

A ball is lost if it has not been found within three minutes. Here "found" means either identified or to be identified as it was found and suspected to be the ball searched for. In OP case none of that happened.

 

Moral of the story: ALWAYS identify all balls visible.

 

Edited March 22 by Mr. Bean

[Hawkeye77]

2 hours ago, Shankyouverymuch said:

Gotta love the ruling by the Pro - " I can see both sides"

 

 

You need a rock (hopefully somewhat diplomatic) when it comes to rulings and with pros wanting to please, often it is a tower of JELL-O.

 

But . . . . OP you need to at least have access to them in your bag whether in the little paperback or on your phone if you are going to pay matches under the rules. That really is on you. 

Edited March 22 by Hawkeye77

[Schulzmc]

Really interesting - thanks to all that chimed in. A few things...

 

1. It never occurred to me that my opponent would have to honor the lost ball since we did not identify his ball in the 3 minutes. Makes sense and I should have thought of that.

2. He really wasn't being a jerk - he's a good guy and I enjoy playing with him. He just takes the rules seriously and since we were looking for a ball that went unfound in the three minutes he thought it was a legitimate rules issue. I honestly did not know if he was right or not. 

3. In defense of the pro, I think he would have taken the issue more seriously if it had affected the match outcome.

[Schulzmc]

10 minutes ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

A ball is lost if it has not been found within three minutes. Here "found" means either identified or to be identified as it was found and suspected to be the ball searched for. In OP case none of that happened.

 

Moral of the story: ALWAYS identify all balls visible.

 

Yeah - lesson learned. It would have been really easy to walk up the 10-20 yds. to that ball and ID it. That would have saved a lot of confusion. We assumed we knew which ball that was (my ball must have taken a weird kick to actually end up left of his) and as my mom used to say, "When you assume you make an "a**" out of "u" and "me" (You see what she did there? a**-u-me)

[davep043]

I'm looking at Clarification Lost/2.  Its intended to address a Player looking for his Original Ball and his Provisional Ball in the same area, but I think it applies here as well. You have two balls that are in the same general area.  You haven't found and identified either ball.  Therefore the two of you have a single 3-minute period to find and identify both balls, you are essentially looking for both balls simultaneously.  You didn't identify either ball within that period, so both balls are Lost.  

[IndyArcher]

27 minutes ago, davep043 said:

I'm looking at Clarification Lost/2.  Its intended to address a Player looking for his Original Ball and his Provisional Ball in the same area, but I think it applies here as well. You have two balls that are in the same general area.  You haven't found and identified either ball.  Therefore the two of you have a single 3-minute period to find and identify both balls, you are essentially looking for both balls simultaneously.  You didn't identify either ball within that period, so both balls are Lost.  

 

It would seem to me that the major difference is they are balls from 2 different players. How do you determine that 1.5 minutes was used to look for each ball? Isn't the time based on the player rather than the ball?

[Mr. Bean]

29 minutes ago, davep043 said:

I'm looking at Clarification Lost/2.  Its intended to address a Player looking for his Original Ball and his Provisional Ball in the same area, but I think it applies here as well. You have two balls that are in the same general area.  You haven't found and identified either ball.  Therefore the two of you have a single 3-minute period to find and identify both balls, you are essentially looking for both balls simultaneously.  You didn't identify either ball within that period, so both balls are Lost.  

 

To take that approach we would have to have seen the area and the size of it. After all, search takes place on the area a ball is ASSUMED to be. Thus the ultimate ruling remains unclear but that is a good approach to bear in mind whenever there are more than one ball searched for in the same area.

[Mr. Bean]

3 minutes ago, IndyArcher said:

 

It would seem to me that the major difference is they are balls from 2 different players. How do you determine that 1.5 minutes was used to look for each ball? Isn't the time based on the player rather than the ball?

 

No. If there are two balls in an essentially same area you have 3 minutes in total to search for both balls.

[IndyArcher]

1 minute ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

No. If there are two balls in an essentially same area you have 3 minutes in total to search for both balls.

 

So, if two separate golfers hit separate balls and one gets to the area two minutes prior to the other and begins a search, then when the other golfer shows up, he only has 1 minute to search for his ball?

[betarhoalphadelta]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

To take that approach we would have to have seen the area and the size of it. After all, search takes place on the area a ball is ASSUMED to be. Thus the ultimate ruling remains unclear but that is a good approach to bear in mind whenever there are more than one ball searched for in the same area.

 

So in this case because one ball was visible, and was ASSUMED to belong to @Schulzmc, then they were NOT searching for his ball, yes? Because they didn't assume his ball would be in the area being searched per @davep043. 

 

And the failure was then that they were searching for his opponent's ball which was ASSUMED to be short of the ball that they ASSUMED to belong to @Schulzmc? 

 

I just have trouble with the ruling that when the location of *A* ball was known, that they could somehow both be considered lost balls. They could not have reasonably been of the opinion they were searching for two balls when one was visible. The error was the assumption of which ball they were searching for.

 

And once the ball was identified not to belong to @Schulzmc, they started looking BEYOND the other ball, because with the data that he was typically the longer player, they looked in a different location because that's where his ball was likely to be. I would think that the simple fact that the search area for his ball is a different area than his opponent's ball would be evidence that they were different searches. 

[Mr. Bean]

11 minutes ago, IndyArcher said:

 

So, if two separate golfers hit separate balls and one gets to the area two minutes prior to the other and begins a search, then when the other golfer shows up, he only has 1 minute to search for his ball?

 

Certainly not. However, in the OP case both players arrived to the area at the same time.

[Mr. Bean]

1 minute ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

So in this case because one ball was visible, and was ASSUMED to belong to @Schulzmc, then they were NOT searching for his ball, yes? Because they didn't assume his ball would be in the area being searched per @davep043. 

 

And the failure was then that they were searching for his opponent's ball which was ASSUMED to be short of the ball that they ASSUMED to belong to @Schulzmc? 

 

I just have trouble with the ruling that when the location of *A* ball was known, that they could somehow both be considered lost balls. They could not have reasonably been of the opinion they were searching for two balls when one was visible. The error was the assumption of which ball they were searching for.

 

And once the ball was identified not to belong to @Schulzmc, they started looking BEYOND the other ball, because with the data that he was typically the longer player, they looked in a different location because that's where his ball was likely to be. I would think that the simple fact that the search area for his ball is a different area than his opponent's ball would be evidence that they were different searches. 

 

It all comes down to the size of the area the balls were assumed to be. And before you ask, no, there is no precise measure to lean on. This is one of those things you know when you are there. If the balls are ESSENTIALLY on the same area then they are searched at the same time.

[betarhoalphadelta]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

It all comes down to the size of the area the balls were assumed to be. And before you ask, no, there is no precise measure to lean on. This is one of those things you know when you are there. If the balls are ESSENTIALLY on the same area then they are searched at the same time.

 

Right, and they were obviously not being searched for at the same time because one ball was visible. They just didn't check which it was 😂

[davep043]

9 minutes ago, IndyArcher said:

 

It would seem to me that the major difference is they are balls from 2 different players. How do you determine that 1.5 minutes was used to look for each ball? Isn't the time based on the player rather than the ball?

No, they each get 3 minutes to search for their own ball.  They happen to be searching the same area.  But neither player identified his ball in the 3 minute time limit.

 

3 minutes ago, IndyArcher said:

So, if two separate golfers hit separate balls and one gets to the area two minutes prior to the other and begins a search, then when the other golfer shows up, he only has 1 minute to search for his ball?

If the second player to arrive deliberately delayed his arrival, that's right. I can't find the right rules citation right now, but you can't intentionally delay your arrival to allow other's to search.  Generally, golfers are moving together.  

4 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

So in this case because one ball was visible, and was ASSUMED to belong to @Schulzmc, then they were NOT searching for his ball, yes? Because they didn't assume his ball would be in the area being searched per @davep043. 

 

And the failure was then that they were searching for his opponent's ball which was ASSUMED to be short of the ball that they ASSUMED to belong to @Schulzmc? 

 

I just have trouble with the ruling that when the location of *A* ball was known, that they could somehow both be considered lost balls. They could not have reasonably been of the opinion they were searching for two balls when one was visible. The error was the assumption of which ball they were searching for.

 

And once the ball was identified not to belong to @Schulzmc, they started looking BEYOND the other ball, because with the data that he was typically the longer player, they looked in a different location because that's where his ball was likely to be. I would think that the simple fact that the search area for his ball is a different area than his opponent's ball would be evidence that they were different searches. 

A player is required to promptly identity a ball.  Neither player did that here, so neither gets the benefit of claiming that ball as his.  @Mr. Bean is right, an official would have to be on site to really make a determination, but neither player knows for certain where his ball is.  If an official WAS there, one of the first things to do is to say "Whose ball is this?"  Once that's done, THEN you can search for the other ball, Until then, the players are searching for BOTH balls, as far as I'm concerned.

[betarhoalphadelta]

8 minutes ago, davep043 said:

 

 

A player is required to promptly identity a ball.  Neither player did that here, so neither gets the benefit of claiming that ball as his.  @Mr. Bean is right, an official would have to be on site to really make a determination, but neither player knows for certain where his ball is.  If an official WAS there, one of the first things to do is to say "Whose ball is this?"  Once that's done, THEN you can search for the other ball, Until then, the players are searching for BOTH balls, as far as I'm concerned.

 

So a failure by either player to identify the visible ball dooms them both. 

 

Frankly, to me that seems more fair than the alternate view, which would be to penalize @Schulzmc's opponent for not identifying the visible ball while effectively rewarding @Schulzmc for the fact that his opponent didn't identify the ball. 

[mstuewe]

18.2a

When Ball Is Lost or Out of Bounds

(1) When Ball Is Lost. A ball is lost if not found in three minutes after the player or their caddie begins to search for it.If a ball is found in that time but it is uncertain whether it is the player’s ball:

• The player must promptly attempt to identify the ball (see Rule 7.2) and is allowed a reasonable time to do so, even if that happens after the three-minute search time has ended.
• This includes a reasonable time to get to the ball if the player is not where the ball is found.

If the player does not identify their ball in that reasonable time, the ball is lost.

 

 

 

Technically speaking, the ball was found in 3 minutes.  I agree with the pro, I could see it both ways.  The player didn’t have to identify his ball in 3 minutes, just had to find the ball in 3 minutes.  That’s an important distinction.  

 

Seems like you guys both could’ve hit your approach shots since a. The ball was found within 3 minutes and b. Your ball was found within 3 minutes of the specific search for yours.

[Mr. Bean]

6 minutes ago, mstuewe said:

18.2a

When Ball Is Lost or Out of Bounds

(1) When Ball Is Lost. A ball is lost if not found in three minutes after the player or their caddie begins to search for it.If a ball is found in that time but it is uncertain whether it is the player’s ball:

• The player must promptly attempt to identify the ball (see Rule 7.2) and is allowed a reasonable time to do so, even if that happens after the three-minute search time has ended.
• This includes a reasonable time to get to the ball if the player is not where the ball is found.

If the player does not identify their ball in that reasonable time, the ball is lost.

 

 

 

Technically speaking, the ball was found in 3 minutes.  I agree with the pro, I could see it both ways.  The player didn’t have to identify his ball in 3 minutes, just had to find the ball in 3 minutes.  That’s an important distinction.  

 

 

No, it was not. They saw a ball but did not identify it. It could have been a stray ball. In order that ball visible to have been found it should have been identified. As they did not do that they were searching for a ball belonging to one of the players. As they did not find nor identify neither of those balls in time they may both have been lost, depending on the size of the area.

[Mr. Bean]

I believe the beginning of following Clarification tells what this finding and identifying is all about:

 

18.2a(1)/3 Meaning of “Reasonable Time To Do So” When Identifying Ball

Rule 18.2a(1) provides that a player must promptly attempt to identify a ball that is found when it is believed that the found ball could be the player’s ball. 

 

So, as a ball was visible it was the the players ' obligation to identify it within a reasonable time. As they did not do it and the 3 minute time elapsed the visible ball was lost. Period.

[Schulzmc]

43 minutes ago, Mr. Bean said:

I believe the beginning of following Clarification tells what this finding and identifying is all about:

 

18.2a(1)/3 Meaning of “Reasonable Time To Do So” When Identifying Ball

Rule 18.2a(1) provides that a player must promptly attempt to identify a ball that is found when it is believed that the found ball could be the player’s ball. 

 

So, as a ball was visible it was the the players ' obligation to identify it within a reasonable time. As they did not do it and the 3 minute time elapsed the visible ball was lost. Period.

I get this - but imagine this scenario - what if we were searching for the ball 50 yards away and no where near that ball. When done in that area we promptly went forward to identify that ball. We were about 20 yards short of that ball… so once the search was finished we did (or at least I did) proceed directly to the ball and identified it.

 

[Augster]

Great read. I concur with Dave and Bean. Dual lost balls. 
 

Players have to ID balls they see/find in a reasonable amount of time. Searching for 3 minutes and not ID’ing a visible ball near the search area is crazy, or lazy. I can’t figure out which.