I was an emergency sub for our team in week #2, our captain lives up near Airville, PA and some joker got high as a kite and smacked into a power pole, causing brownouts all over the area and shorting out Captain Jim’s well pump and a few other things in his house. As a result, I ended up playing again in week #2. After the previous week’s penalty assessment on #11, I was looking forward to a nice relaxing evening without having to crack open the rule book on any player on our side. It was not meant to be.
We were playing #9 and one of our opponents had hit a beautiful approach shot that had soared majestically into the heavens and only came back to rest on mother earth after it had nearly entered the entryway of the clubhouse. I was discussing what to do with our opponent (the road behind the green on #9 is OB for league play) while my partner was up the left side hunting for his ball. On the tee box he’d decided that he would be retiring his old ball which had been subjected to numerous blows from the cart path on #8. Rich has an equal opportunity policy for any ball that he finds. If he found it, he’ll eventually use it in competition. At any rate, Rich had pulled out a Callaway #2 with a “B17” marking on it, and with a flourish of panache declared he "would be playing the B17 into the hole!". Upon finding a Callaway #2 in the rough on the left side of the fairway, Rich commenced to play a nice pitch onto the green. As I approached the same general area, I only found one ball, and it was not my Callaway #2 Supersoft with the purple Team 39 logo, it was the B17. Rich had played my ball.
What to do…. Well, I asked Rich to throw me back my ball (yes, it had the purple mark on it) , told him to cancel out that nice approach he’d made into the green, add two penalty strokes to his score and go back and play the right ball into the green. I then had to establish where he’d made the stroke on my ball, and I then dropped the ball as close to that spot and very nearly holed the ball for eagle.
This is likely not to be the only time we’ll encounter someone making a stroke on the wrong ball. Heck, I’ve done it in match play and immediately lost the hole! I know I’ve talked about this fairly often in this blog, but at a minimum, make sure you mark your ball in a fashion that identifies it as your own. Before most rounds I routinely mark up at least a sleeve of balls with my purple pen. If it’s possible, try to mark balls with different numbers so that you don’t have 3 Callaway #2’s. When you’re forced to hit a provisional ball because you think the first one’s lost of OB, it’s nice to have a different number available to be able to say “Yep, that was my second ball…” I’ll take this discussion to an extreme. Say you hit a ball on #7 tee that sails into the trees on the right. It’s a Nike #1 with no markings. You reach in your bag and pull out another Nike #1 with no markings and hit it in exactly the same place. When you go down the hill from the tee box you discover a single Nike #1. Is it your first ball? Is it the provisional? Are you laying 1, or are you laying 3? It's impossible to tell, and my take on it is that you are now laying 3.
When you do think you’ve discovered your ball, you have every right to identify it as your own – whether you’re in the fairway, in a hazard, OB, or on the green. However, (under the current rules) you must let your fellow competitors know that you intend to touch the ball to identify it, mark the ball, lift it (carefully) without cleaning the ball, find your mark, and then replace the ball in the same condition and location. If you have removed the ball from a hazard, you’ll have to recreate the lie (even if the ball was buried, but you are allowed to leave a small portion of the ball showing).
As our experience illustrated, even though there are a lot of brands of golf balls, two people on the same hole may be playing the same type of ball into the same area of the course. Make sure the ball you play is your own.
Story by David Feherty: "It was back in the 70s and a very prominent golfer of the time was playing at Augusta for his first Masters. Back then the players could not bring their own caddies but had to use one of the locals.
This particular golfer told the caddy master he wanted a big fellow who could handle his bag, but who also would keep quiet, no advice needed. He was assigned Floyd who said “Hello Mr. ………..”. The golfer said “Hello.” and “That’s the last I want to hear.”
Everything went well until the 10th hole when the golfer pushed his drive into the right trees on the par 4. After surveying the scene he said out loud, “I’m going to hit a low fade out through that opening to carry and land mid green and roll over the crest down near the hole.” Surprisingly he pulled it off exactly and turned to his caddy and said, “How’s that?”
The caddy spoke for the first time and said, “That wasn’t your ball.”