Original Ball

Original Ball

How the Provisional Ball Rule Actually Works

One of the worst things that can happen on the golf course is, while the round can take up to 5 hours, you are just standing there the whole day and you watch the group up in front of you, all day, and you just get to stand around and wait.

So the provisional ball rule was developed by the people who write the rules of golf. The provisional ball is supposed to help speed up play.

Some people, that is people who are new seem to think the provisional ball is a "mulligan" or a "do-over". That is not what a provisional ball is. It is 100% legal and within the rules of golf. It also helps to speed up play and to prevent the players from getting bogged down with slow play.

You should play a provisional ball if you fear your shot ended up out of bounds or was lost outside a hazard.

It works this way: If you have doubt that your ball can be found or is in bounds, you simply announce that you will play a "provisional ball." One of the rules is you have to say out loud "provisional ball" to your playing partners, or it does not count. You can't just get back up and say "I'll just hit another one" or "I'll hit it again".

The nice part about the provisional ball is now you can play shots on that ball. You can continue to do this up to the place where you think that the original ball was lost. Once you reach the point of where you think the first ball was lost, you can start to search for the original ball. If you don't find the first ball in 5 minutes than the provisional ball is now the one in play.

You are now going to save time. You will also not have to walk back or drive back to where you hit the shot on the ball that you lost. So that provisional ball saves time and embarrassment.

This is how the scoring would go: What you need to do is count all the stokes you made on the original ball. Then you have a penalty stroke. Then count all the strokes that you made on the provisional ball.Now this is what happened, you hit your tee shot OB, so you would have to count that shot, you would then have a penalty stroke for hitting the ball OB, and don't forget you hit your provisional ball up to this point. So you are lying 3 and hitting 4.

OK, here is another scenario, you go up to where you thought the ball was lost and you find the ball in bounds and you hit a provisional ball, what do you do?

In that case, it's like the provisional ball never existed. Just go and pick up your provisional ball. Any shots that you played on the provisional ball you don't need to count. Now all you have to do is just continue to play the original ball.

So, say you boom a monster fade 280 yards OB right then, upset and out of your rhythm, you top your provisional four or five times until you reach the area of the original ball. This is great, you get up to where you bombed that tee shot and you happen to see your ball is still in bounds. Wow, how good does that feel? For scoring this is how it goes. All of those shots that you took on the provisional ball don't count. That's right those shots never happened because you declared that ball as a provisional ball. What a great feeling.

About the Author

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