Going back to the tee!!!!
I'm stepping in here, and I have to admit that I see Garry's point, but I want to relay an experience that happen to me just 2 days ago and probably has happened to everybody.
(This is after I've been following this form/topic for the last week.)
I was playing a friendly round with some buddies. We were on the 10th hole at a course down near Hawkesbury. It is a par 4 with a slight dogleg right. I hit my drive over some trees exactly where I wanted to hit it. All 3 of my "fellow-competitors" said "GREAT SHOT" as my ball was in the air. After I looked for 5 minutes I could not find my ball and proceeded to return to the tee. My ball had to be in the rough somewhere just beside the fairway. My fellow-competitors would not allow me to go back to the tee and made me to hit it from where we figured it should be. They told me I take the game too seriously and might not call me to play again.
Now I have a problem with a few of things here:
1. Garry's point is that I cheated and can't use this score for handicap purposes.
2. My buddies are mad at me and think I'm a golf freak and have no life.
3. I'm being penalized for something that a PGA player would never incounter because they have galleries, marshalls, ball finders (whatever they're called), caddies, etc. to help find their golf balls.
4. Now I know their mindset (my buddies) is like probably like most golfers in the Ottawa region and I bet 80-85% of the golfers in Ottawa would not go back to the tee (I'm estimating but I think probably pretty close), so again I'm at a disadvantage if I did go back to the tee.
I guess I should of hit a provisional, but if I did on that tee, I probably should of hit about 12 other provisionals during the round and that was my only lost ball. Then you include my 3 buddies and they too probably should of hit about 12 also (maybe more). So if you look at it that would be about 50 provisionals from our foursome, which would add at least 1/2 to our round (maybe more). Then if every foursome hit 50 provisionals........
My point is Garry, where do you draw the line?????