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Of Unplayable, Lost Ball & As it Lies?

Posted by @pgabsec Rules In Action 7:17 AM

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Dear Zainudin,
My golf ball hit a wild palm (picture) beside the fairway ... and never came down. It was stuck up there in the bunch. Whilst I cursed my luck, my friends got a good laugh out of my predicament. But what courses of action do I am allowed to take?

Zainudin: There are three options for continuing play when your ball gets stuck in a palm or a tree: play the ball as it lies; declare the ball unplayable; or take a lost ball.
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Play It as It Lies

What this means, of course, is that you're willing to climb up into the palm and take a swing at the ball. And if you did, you wouldn't be the first. Nick Faldo famously played a ball from a tree once.

But the odds of coming up with a decent shot in such a scenario are mighty slim. The odds of further messing up the hole are much greater. So this option is best left to golfers who are even crazier than me.

You can declare the ball unplayable under Rule 28, take a one-stroke penalty and, most likely, drop within two club-lengths of the ball (there are other options for continuing under the unplayable rule, but this is the most likely to be used in this scenario). The spot from which you measure the two club-lengths is that spot on the ground directly under where the ball rests in the palm.

But in order to use the unplayable option, you must be able to identify your ball. You can't just assume that it's up there somewhere, and you can't just assume that a ball you see in the bunch is yours. You must positively identify it as yours.

That might mean trying to shake it loose from the bunch, or climbing the palm simply to retrieve the ball for ID purposes. Before you do either, make sure you've announced your intention to treat the ball as unplayable. If you dislodge the ball without having made your intentions clear (to continue under the unplayable rule), you'll incur a penalty stroke under Rule 18-2a (Ball at Rest Moved) and will be required to put the ball back in the bunch! (Failure to replace a ball such moved would result in an additional 1-stroke penalty.)

Lost Ball

You may not be able to find your ball that has lodged in a palm, even if you know it's there. The only option then is to declare a lost ball and proceed under Rule 27 (Ball Lost or Out of Bounds). The lost ball penalty is stroke-and-distance; that means assessing a one-stroke penalty and returning to the spot of the previous stroke, where you must replay the shot. Even if you see a ball up in the palm, you'll have to take a lost ball penalty unless you can positively identify it as yours.