Lost ball AND wrong ball

[pendodave]

Playing the other day and the following scenario popped up.

Dogleg hole. My partner hits a decent enough shot. From where we are, we guess edge of fairway/semi.
Get round the corner, his ball (!) Is where we think. He plays to the green and hits it right into lightly tree'd area. "We'll find it, I saw it bounce".
Search commences. We find a random ball, but not his. After a period of 3 minutes has elapsed he wanders back 150 yards to drop and play again.
Goes to drop, spots a ball on the ground very nearby and realises it's his original ball. There had obviously just been another titleist left on the ground where we thought his ball should be.
(As it happens, we realised that the random ball he found in the trees after his second shot was the ball he had hit, we just didn't know it at the time).

We decided he should carry on playing his orginial ball under a 2 stroke penalty for playing the wrong ball
Should we have added any more shots for "losing" the wrong ball (although we did, unknowingly find it), or for taking at least 5 minutes to get back to find the original ball?

We were in a medal format, so just going to the next tee with a blob wasn't an option.

 

[doublebogey7]

Sounds like you proceeded correctly. There is no penalty for losing a wrong, and the three minutes search time to find his original ball stopped when he played the wrong ball and only resumed when he got back to the area in which the original ball was thought to be.

 

[jim8flog]

All shots played with a wrong ball do not count but there is a two shot penalty for playing a wrong ball.
There would also be a penalty for the lost ball of stroke and distance.
Even though he found the original ball it is a lost ball as it was not found within the 3 minute and he would need to go back to where that ball was played from.

There would be no penalty for the time it takes to correct the errors.

 

[Colin L]

Doublebogey7 has it.
Shots and penalties relating solely to the wrong ball discounted.
General penalty for playing wrong ball.
Must play the correct ball. [ Rule 6.3c]
Time spent playing a wrong ball not counted in search time. [stuck for a reference for the moment ]*

*Edit: It's tucked away in the first bullet point of Interpretation 18.2a(1)/1

 

[pendodave]

Thanks everyone.
Pleased that we didn't totally mare it up.
I guess we could have verified it with someone afterwards, but it was the second round of a 36 hole medal comp and we were a bit knackered by the time we got in. His round didn't trouble the scorers in any positive way!