Hey Caddie, Is That Ball in Bounds…Yet?

(Rules for the Game of Golf)

So, you hate the rule about a ball that is lost or out of bounds. You don’t like taking a penalty stroke and also losing distance. It’s so much easier to drop a ball somewhere near where it went O.B. and hit it from there.

If that’s true, be glad you weren’t playing in a “medal-day” competition on the links at The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in 1842. The rules committee had just published an update of the newest version of the Rules of Golf and one of the submissions listed on their posting before play began was the following:

Medal-Days: New holes shall always be made on the day the medals are played for; and no competitor shall play at these holes before he starts for the prize, under the penalty of being disqualified for playing for the medal. The party losing a ball on a medal day shall, after five minutes search, go back and lose three strokes and the distance as penalty.

That’s right, three penalty strokes and distance for a ball lost or out of bounds. Do you feel better now? If not, don’t forget that you got your wish in 2019, sort of! That is the first time in the modern era that a player is allowed to take relief using a defined method of measurement from where the ball is out of bounds or is most likely lost with a penalty of one stroke. But the committee must add this option to the local rules before the round begins to be in effect.

Rule 18 has been changed various times since that 19th century version by the R&A but there’s still some bite to the rule. Reviewing the purpose of the rule, we find the following statement: Rule 18 covers taking relief under penalty of stroke and distance. When a ball is lost outside a penalty area and comes to rest out of bounds, the required progression of playing from the teeing area is broken; the player must resume that progression by playing again from where the previous stroke was made.

One of the easiest ways to navigate this rule is to remember you may use stroke and distance as a relief procedure at any time, no matter where you are on the course. This includes O.B., lost ball, unplayable ball, and penalty areas. All these options do come with a payment of a one penalty stroke.

We read where our ancestors also had a time limit of five minutes before paying their hefty fine of three strokes. That has also changed for us. We now have just three minutes to find the original ball before we proceed back for our next stroke. In my active role as a rules official, I have noticed that players are frequently abandoning their search before three minutes have expired, far more often than they were when the five-minute search was allowed.

The rule book includes an illustration of when a ball is out of bounds using a white line and white stakes as guidelines. The best way to determine whether the ball is out of bounds is to remember if the ball is entirely beyond the boundary, the ball is out of bounds. If any part of the ball is not beyond the boundary, the ball is in bounds. The white line is itself out of bounds.

The final sub-chapter to Rule 18 includes the Provisional Ball. The provisional ball is a second ball that has been put in play to save time when the original ball may be lost or out of bounds. Knowing that there is a possibility the player would need to return to where the previous stroke was made if that happens, the provisional is used to keep the travel time down, if possible. Players do have a responsibility to announce if a ball is a provisional ball by stating such before the stroke is made. Many instances are chronicled that a player believes he made a statement he was playing a provisional ball when in fact the statement did not include the correct words or phrase. I’m going to “reload” or “here’s goes another one” is not allowed by rule as a correct statement but rather it is the use of the word “provisional” that is needed.

The provisional ball may be struck as many times as needed until it reaches a part of the course where the original ball is most likely to be found. The player may at that time search for the original ball for three minutes. If the ball is not found, the provisional ball becomes the ball in play and the hole must be completed using that ball, unless another relief procedure is needed along the way.

This may be an elementary fact about golf, but it seems to be violated more than you think. Place an identification mark on your golf ball and don’t use the same ID mark for every ball. If you hit your original ball and your provisional ball in the same area of the course and they have the same markings on them, you cannot distinguish between the two of them. The player must choose one of the balls to be treated as the provisional ball, which is now in play. That makes the other ball the original ball and must not be played. (Wrong Ball)

One final reminder about Out of Bounds is that the Committee will often post a notice that when a ball crosses a road within a golf course it is out of bounds, even if the ball comes to rest on another part of the course. Be aware of these notices and ask the starter or official as many questions as you wish so you won’t be surprised during your round. We certainly don’t want any three stroke penalties, do we?