Keep the emails coming. I’m enjoying delving into your rules quandaries and this time we’ve got a pickle with a provisional ball to consider.
“I hit a ball into a load of trees, about 200 yards away. In case it was lost, I took a provisional (with stroke and distance).
“When I got down to the trees (real thick stuff) I did find my ball. I couldn’t go back on the line from the hole, as it was still in a load of thick jungle.
“I tried to go two club lengths laterally but [it] wasn’t enough to get out of the trees either.
“So I opted for stroke and distance i.e. the provisional ball I’d just hit. But my partners didn’t think I could do that as I needed to walk back up the hill 200 yards and play it again. But I’d just done that with my provisional.
“Can you clarify please what the ruling is and whether I can use the provisional if I want to take stroke and distance from an unplayable ball? Or whether you have to walk all the way back (which seems stupid – slow play etc)?”
Right, there is quite a lot to get through here and I’m going to tell you something about relief options for an unplayable ball of which you might not all be aware.
But I’ll do it step-by-step so let’s get stuck in…
When must a provisional ball be abandoned?
The first thing is to establish what a provisional ball is and its purpose. You can play another ball “provisionally under stroke and distance” IF a ball might be lost or IF it might be out of bounds.
Notice I’ve put the IF in capital letters and in bold. It’s hugely important here because the original ball is neither lost nor out of bounds. It has been found.
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Once that happens, the provisional ball is redundant. Put it completely out of your mind.
Rule 18.3c (3) says a provisional ball must be abandoned when the “original ball is found on the course…before the end of the three-minute search time”.
The verdict? “The player must play the original ball as it lies”.
As you’ll know, there is nothing to stop you then declaring an unplayable ball and considering the three available options – lateral relief, back-on-the-line relief, and stroke-and-distance.
But that stroke-and-distance option means playing from where the previous stroke was made and, yes, that’s 200 yards back up the hill – because, and it’s worth repeating, that provisional had to be abandoned when the original ball was found.
If you opt to hit the provisional regardless, bad things are going to happen to your scorecard.
You’ll have played a wrong ball. That’s the general penalty – two strokes or loss of hole in match play.
You must correct the mistake. If you don’t and then make a stroke to begin another hole (or return your scorecard if it’s on the 18th) you are going to be disqualified.
I do have one potential time-saver for you. Our emailer said taking lateral relief – two club lengths – wasn’t enough to get them out of the trees.
But you are not restricted to taking lateral relief only once. You can take it as many times as you like but you must add on a penalty stroke each time you do it.
So if you think it will take four club lengths to extricate yourself from the leaves, you can measure out the first two, take a drop, and then repeat the process.
You’ll add a penalty stroke for each occasion to your score, but you might consider that a better prospect than going back to take stroke-and-distance and risk finding the trees once again.
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Got a question for our expert?
Despite the changes to the Rules of Golf in 2019 and 2023, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. I’ll try to help by featuring the best of your queries in this column.
What do you make of this rule? Let me you what you think, and send me your own rules questions, by emailing me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or by leaving us a comment on X.
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