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What is the rule if you find your ball in an unplayable lie position? If I had hit a provisional, thinking my first shot might be out of bounds, but it was found to be in bounds, but unplayable, can I play the provisional? With or without a provisional, what is my next move when I find my ball to be unplayable?
- Michael H., South Bay Pub Links
The Ruling
You step up on the tee, make a confident swing… and immediately know it’s trouble. The ball leaks right, disappears from sight, and you sulk back to your bag. You're pretty sure you won't find that first shot, so you tee up a provisional and absolutely stripe it down the middle. Feeling rejuvenated, you head towards where you think where the first shot went only to find your original ball sitting in bounds, but parked against a tree root with no shot of a swing at all. Meanwhile, your provisional is sitting pretty in the fairway. It's tempting to play the provisional, but what are you actually allowed to do?
If you properly played a provisional ball and found the original ball in the time allowed for searching (within 3 minutes), then the provisional ball is to be disregarded. So, the original ball is your ball in play and if you wish to declare it unplayable, you are able to do so under Rule 19.2 and incur a penalty of one stroke. Your relief options are as follows:
(1) Proceed under stroke and distance and go back to the teeing area hitting 3.
(2) Drop the original ball or another ball utilizing back-on-the-line relief (which means to drop behind the spot of the original ball, keeping the spot of the original ball between the hole and the spot where the ball is dropped). Once the ball is dropped, a one club-length relief area is created in which the ball must come to rest in.
(3) Lateral relief: drop the original or another ball in a two-club length relief area with the spot of the original ball as the reference point. These two club-lengths can be left, right, or behind the original location of the ball but no closer to the hole.
The short version: once you’ve found your original ball in bounds, the provisional is officially out of the picture no matter how good it was. From there, declaring the ball unplayable gives you three different escape routes, all for a one-stroke penalty. Whether you reload from the tee, take it straight back on the line, or move sideways for some breathing room, you'll need to play the original ball.
Note: A correction was made to the Nov. 15 Rules Crew post in SCGA News. See the corrected ruling here.
