Rules Column: Patti Daskalos

Rules of the Game:When is your ball considered to be lost?

You would think the answer to the question “when is your golf ball considered lost” would be as straightforward as “when you can’t find it.”

That statement may be true in other aspects of your life, but on the golf course there is a more specific answer to when a golf ball is considered to be lost. 

According to the USGA a ball is Lost when that ball is NOT found in three minutes after the player (or their caddie, or the player’s partner, or partner’s caddie) begins to search for it.  A ball is NOT Lost simply because a player declares it to be Lost. There are a few parameters too that guide what the three minutes can look like:

• You can’t delay searching until others arrive to help you. Your three-minute search time begins when you arrive in a position to search.

• If the search time is interrupted for a good reason (when play is suspended, or you are moving out of the way for safety purposes), only the time spent searching counts in the three minutes time between the interruption and the re-start of the search does not count. You get a total of three minutes to complete your search.

At the end of three minutes search time if you have not found or identified your ball, it is considered to be Lost. To continue play, you need to return to where your previous stroke was made under penalty of Stroke and Distance. Stroke and Distance means you get the penalty of one stroke, and you lose the benefit of any gain of distance towards the hole from the spot where the previous stroke was made.  I don’t know anybody who really likes Stroke and Distance as a penalty.  However, did you know that a player ALWAYS has the option of taking Stroke and Distance relief option—no matter where your ball is on the course?  There are even a few situations where Stroke and Distance would get your ball closer to the hole than where your ball came to rest after a stroke—Consider the following two scenarios:

• Richie, CJ, and Tyler were out playing a round of golf on a Canyon-type course with lots of boulders near the fairway.  On a par-5, Tyler shanks his second shot to the right and it ricochets off a boulder and goes backwards down the fairway towards the tee instead of the green.  It lands 35 yards behind from where he hit the ball. The ball comes to rest up against a big rock where Tyler has no swing. CJ and Richie share information about the rules with Tyler (which is not considered to be advice) and tell Tyler that under the Rules of Golf, Tyler can take Stroke and Distance penalty relief to play his ball from where his previous stroke was made (which is closer to the hole from where his ball came to rest).  

• Later in the round the threesome is playing a par-4 with a two-tiered elevated green.  The hole location is on the upper tier at the back of the green.  Richie has a 3-foot birdie putt, and with a little adrenaline in his system, putts too hard and the ball rolls past the hole, down the front tier, off the front of the elevated green and back into the fairway 15 yards from the front of the green. Richie is allowed to play under Stroke and Distance penalty relief, place the ball back on the green then putt again.  So even though players don’t often like Stroke and Distance as a penalty, there are times when it can be your friend!