Player's ball played by another

Orikoru

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Another stupid rule. Some other idiot whacks your ball and you get punished for it if he doesn't figure it out within the next 3 minutes. How is that fair?
 

Colin L

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Another stupid rule. Some other idiot whacks your ball and you get punished for it if he doesn't figure it out within the next 3 minutes. How is that fair?
How long would you allow? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Perhaps you have to accept there has to be some limit and if so, why not the same limit as for any other attempt to find your ball?
 

Orikoru

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How long would you allow? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Perhaps you have to accept there has to be some limit and if so, why not the same limit as for any other attempt to find your ball?
Take this example - the chap who doesn't find his ball proceeds with his provisional. When they get to the next set of shots the guy who hit his ball realises he hit the wrong ball. Why shouldn't the first chap be able to go back to where it was hit from and replace it and continue with his rightful ball? He doesn't deserve to be punished for someone else's mistake when there is NOTHING he could have done.
 

rulefan

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Take this example - the chap who doesn't find his ball proceeds with his provisional. When they get to the next set of shots the guy who hit his ball realises he hit the wrong ball. Why shouldn't the first chap be able to go back to where it was hit from and replace it and continue with his rightful ball? He doesn't deserve to be punished for someone else's mistake when there is NOTHING he could have done.
But the guy who hit the wrong ball doesn't notice it at the time but only when he takes the ball out of the hole. When does the player who hit the provisional return and continue with his original ball?
 

Orikoru

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But the guy who hit the wrong ball doesn't notice it at the time but only when he takes the ball out of the hole. When does the player who hit the provisional return and continue with his original ball?
Whenever it's discovered! As that would be fair. Yes you might have to let the next group play through while he goes back. 😄
 

jim8flog

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Take this example - the chap who doesn't find his ball proceeds with his provisional. When they get to the next set of shots the guy who hit his ball realises he hit the wrong ball. Why shouldn't the first chap be able to go back to where it was hit from and replace it and continue with his rightful ball? He doesn't deserve to be punished for someone else's mistake when there is NOTHING he could have done.
Within the context of what has to happen to the guy who hit the wrong ball this seems reasonable.

In stroke play, the player gets the general penalty (two penalty strokes) and must
correct the mistake by continuing play with the original ball by playing it as it lies
or taking relief under the Rules:
 

rulefan

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Whenever it's discovered! As that would be fair. Yes you might have to let the next group play through while he goes back. 😄
So the first guy (A) miscued his ball 50 yards (which is why they all didn't see it as they walked past. He spends 2.45 looking for a ball that had been hit by another player (B). Player A walks 200yards back to the tee to play S&D. They all walk to the green of the 460 yard hole. Player A walks back 410 yards to play his original. Player B walks back to look for his ball where(?) and to correct his error or take S&D.
Really?
 

Orikoru

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So the first guy (A) miscued his ball 50 yards (which is why they all didn't see it as they walked past. He spends 2.45 looking for a ball that had been hit by another player (B). Player A walks 200yards back to the tee to play S&D. They all walk to the green of the 460 yard hole. Player A walks back 410 yards to play his original. Player B walks back to look for his ball where(?) and to correct his error or take S&D.
Really?
What's the normal penalty for player B? I'm not advocating any changes to that. I was only talking about the unfair punishment to player A for something he can do nothing about. Worst case scenario, with the current rules, another player who's already NRed could sabotage another player's round by hitting his ball before he's found and then later claiming he's hit the wrong ball by accident!

I dislike any rule where you can be punished for something you had absolutely zero control or blame for. It's that simple really. I'm not really sure I understand why you're saying he should take the punishment for this. Just because it's inconvenient or takes time to correct it? Pretty poor reason if it costs someone a good round in a competition.
 

Colin L

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What's the normal penalty for player B? I'm not advocating any changes to that. I was only talking about the unfair punishment to player A for something he can do nothing about. Worst case scenario, with the current rules, another player who's already NRed could sabotage another player's round by hitting his ball before he's found and then later claiming he's hit the wrong ball by accident!

I dislike any rule where you can be punished for something you had absolutely zero control or blame for. It's that simple really. I'm not really sure I understand why you're saying he should take the punishment for this. Just because it's inconvenient or takes time to correct it? Pretty poor reason if it costs someone a good round in a competition.
You would presumably want a rule to allow you to reply a shot without penalty if your ball struck a bird in flight and was deflected out of bounds?
 

rulefan

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What's the normal penalty for player B? I'm not advocating any changes to that. I was only talking about the unfair punishment to player A for something he can do nothing about. Worst case scenario, with the current rules, another player who's already NRed could sabotage another player's round by hitting his ball before he's found and then later claiming he's hit the wrong ball by accident!

I dislike any rule where you can be punished for something you had absolutely zero control or blame for. It's that simple really. I'm not really sure I understand why you're saying he should take the punishment for this. Just because it's inconvenient or takes time to correct it? Pretty poor reason if it costs someone a good round in a competition.
Player hits a good drive over the brow of a hill down the middle. Unseen, a young boy runs out from an adjacent garden, pinches the ball and disappears into the house. No ball to be seen. What would your recommended rule be? And what if another competitor had planned it beforehand?
 

Orikoru

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Player hits a good drive over the brow of a hill down the middle. Unseen, a young boy runs out from an adjacent garden, pinches the ball and disappears into the house. No ball to be seen. What would your recommended rule be? And what if another competitor had planned it beforehand?
This basically happened to me in a match last year. A young girl playing the adjacent hole pinched my ball. We knew this because we shouted up and asked them, and got it back - but none of us saw where it was initially so I was out of the hole. I was fuming obviously.

I don't know what the rule should be for that. 💩 is obviously going to happen from time to time. Maybe you should be able to retake your tee shot without penalty. (In the above case I probably wouldn't have bothered since it was Betterball and my partner was in play anyway.)
 

nickjdavis

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Player hits a good drive over the brow of a hill down the middle. Unseen, a young boy runs out from an adjacent garden, pinches the ball and disappears into the house. No ball to be seen. What would your recommended rule be? And what if another competitor had planned it beforehand?
A local course to me has a par3 with a blind green....the local scrotes would run out from the woods, pick up a ball and put it in the hole and disappear.
 

VVega

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How long would you allow? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Perhaps you have to accept there has to be some limit and if so, why not the same limit as for any other attempt to find your ball?
Until the hole is finished would be reasonable as most errors are allowed to be corrected before the hole is finished?
 

Steven Rules

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but none of us saw where it was initially so I was out of the hole. I was fuming obviously.

I don't know what the rule should be for that.
If you don't know where the ball was, you make an estimate and replace it there. (Rules 9.6 and 14.2c)

There is no reason for you to be 'out of the hole' if it is known or virtually certain that an outside influence took your ball.
 

Colin L

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I was on a refereeing job on Cardrona golf course many years ago and was standing behind a player whose drive hit a duck in flight. He was luckier than Tom Kite as his ball came down on the fairway and he lost a bit of distance, that's all. As you can imagine, the jokes going around about birdies were excruciatingly awful.

Note:
Considerable harm was done to an animal in the making of this story.
 
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