Lost ball by fellow competitor mistakenly playing it

[Bigfoot]

Today, whilst playing in a medal, our group let another through. Whilst waiting in the fairway we watched them walk down, identify their balls and play them to the green before we played to the green. No problem at all. One of them called back to check what we were playing as he was playing a similar Callaway to me and they were close together.

Our group then discussed what would happen if the hole was slightly different (i.e. they were hidden from us ) and we had called a group through and one had then played my ball and continued with it to the next hole. I knew that I had hit the fairway with my second shot , and seen it happen but if I knew I had hit the fairway but not seen the player play my ball, what would I do? I said that I must go back and play another as I did not see it happen.

Thoughts?

 

[Wabinez]

Surely if not known or virtually certain that an outside agent has moved your ball, then yes, you would have to consider lost and re-tee.

Otherwise 18-4 comes into play (if seen, obviously)

 

[Colin L]

Surely if not known or virtually certain that an outside agent has moved your ball, then yes, you would have to consider lost and re-tee.

Otherwise 18-4 comes into play (if seen, obviously)

Yes to the first part: if you do not know or are not virtually certain that an outside agency has taken your ball, it is lost. The Rule concerned is, however, 18-1. See the Note:
http://www.usga.org/rules/rules-and-decisions.html#!rule-18,18-1

Rule 18-4 isn't the applicable one because a player in the group in front is not a fellow-competitor. That term is used of another player in the same group. A player in another group is a competitor. If your ball is moved by someone in your own group, there will always be knowledge that he did so and you can replace it - with another ball if necessary. I can't think of any circumstances where you wouldn't know (which is a dangerous invitation for someone to contradict!).

 

[OnTour]

100% reason to mark your ball up 👍 and not let it out a sight 🕵

 

[jim8flog]

100% reason to mark your ball up  and not let it out a sight 

Get to my age and its out of sight within about 200 yards, big problem when you can still hit 300 yards.