Ran into what appeared to be an argument on the clubhouse porch after we’d been pulled off the course for lightning last week. Generally I try to avoid sticking my nose where it’s not wanted, and I could tell pretty quickly that although one of the parties wanted my 2 cents, the other was stubbornly opposed to bringing in a third party so I walked away. Heard a little about it through the grapevine the next day, and apparently it had to do with the play of a provisional ball…. Back in 2012 one of these same guys told me a story about playing a provisional ball after he’d thought he’d lost his original ball, and after 2 or 3 strokes on the provisional, he’d found his original. What was the appropriate “ball in play”? It led to a lengthy blog entry on provisional balls (See my entry for 31 Jul 12 below), but here is the Cliff Notes version: If you think you’ve lost a ball or hit it out-of-bounds, signal your intention to hit a provisional ball. You may hit that provisional ball all the way up the fairway (say you hit a worm burner off the tee and scuff another through the rough before you hit a good third well down the fairway) accumulating strokes on that provisional ball UNTIL you reach the search area for the original ball. You five-minute search time starts when you arrive at the search location. If you find your original ball in that time window, YOUR PROVISIONAL BALL AS WELL AS ALL THE STROKES ACCUMULATED TO THAT POINT are NULL AND VOID. PERIOD.
The allowance for multiple strokes on the provisional ball is to allow you to play a ball up to the area where you will search for the original ball (and save time). In other words, if your provisional only goes 50 yards from the tee, you don’t have to go search for the original and then come all the way back near the tee to play the second shot on the provisional ball. Do you have to search for the original ball? (Say your provisional ball is the greatest shot you’ve ever hit and you would gladly accept a penalty stroke to keep playing it.) No, you are not obligated to search, but your opponent or fellow competitor, or a ranger may search if they wish. If a found ball is suspected to be yours, you are OBLIGATED to identify it to see if it’s yours.