rules question help

[beggsy]

i am just wondering if you play a provisional ball off the tee are you allowed to walk past it to look for your first ball and then after having 5 minutes to look for it can you then walk back upp the fairway 50 yards to play your 4th with the provisional

 

[rgs]

You are entitled to play your provisional until you are past the point where your original ball lies. So no need to walk past your provisional to search for the original ball.

 

[beggsy]

yes but what should happen if they walk past there prov and then have to walk past

 

[Matty]

There is nothing in the rules as far as I know about how you should look for a ball after playing a provisional.

I guess that pace of play would come into it but having knocked a ball and then hit a provisional, if you walk past the provisional to look for your first ball then while you are looking you should wave anyone behind you through.

I think it's up to the player to decide to look first or play the provisional (and 4th shot) first.

 

[Fyldewhite]

As above, you can play your provisional until past the place where original likely to be but the rules don't say you have to. However, you are supposed to play without undue delay so I'd say if your provisional was only 10/20/30 yards behind it would be fine to wait but if you've topped it off the tee it would clearly be unreasonable to go forward to look then back to provisional. Common sense dictates really.

 

[viscount17]

I'm guessing you're thinking of the case where you're searching one side of the fairway with the provisional on the other - slice the first then overdo the safety on the second.

as has been said it's what is reasonable - you don't have to search for 5 minutes, you don't have to search at all - and we'd all be better off if more people realised that.