A Long Walk Spoiled

[BC MIST]

In the same OCAA tournament a player hits his 225 second shot over the green on the par 5 14th at Upper Canada GC. After searching for a couple of minutes he finds a ball, pitches it on to the green and when he marks the ball he discovers that it is not his. He searches for a couple of more minutes and then makes the long walk back to the point from which he had hit the original.

Just as he was about to drop another ball, a fellow competitor found the player's original ball. Because he had searched for the original ball for less than 5 minutes, he walked back, and played out the original with a pitch shot and two putts.

Ruling??
Score for the hole??

[Ginker]

My only comment is thats two big balls to be over the back of 14 in two

[Sakuraba]

6 or 7? Whatever the penalty is for playing the wrong ball. (if its 1 its 6 if its 2 its 7) I'm going with a 6 on the card.

[BC MIST]

My only comment is thats two big balls to be over the back of 14 in two

The tee was up and the wind was down.

[jvincent]

Two stroke penalty for playing a wrong ball.

Since the original ball was found within 5 minutes and he had not put another ball in play yet he scores a 7.

[LobWedge]

My only comment is thats two big balls to be over the back of 14 in two

It was Noback playing from the ladies tee.

[BC MIST]

Since the original ball was found within 5 minutes

What part of the description indicates this?

[Skiddlydidly]

...Because he had searched for the original ball for less than 5 minutes, he walked back, and played out the original ...

This part does...

EDIT: Although, I suppose more than 5 minutes may have elapsed since the search was begun... but we weren't told that...

[jvincent]

What part of the description indicates this?

The original description says that the total time searched was less than five minutes before the original ball was found.

It was not clear that more than 5 minutes had elapsed from the start so I assumed it had.

[Kiwi battler]

The question I need to ask , since 2 minutes + 2 minutes leaves 1 minute

How long was he walking back to put another ball into play ?

Sounds like a DQ to me ....

[jvincent]

Going by the letter of the rule, the player must find and identify the ball as his within 5 minutes. I made that assumption based on the given situation. If that is not correct then the description needs to be more precise. Maybe the guy was a really fast runner and was able to go 225 yards there and back in less than a minute? If not, then say so.

I hate when the rules questions are treated as word games where the real skill is an exercise in reading comprehension. Many of the rules questions are formed this way. This is, IMHO, not the best way to do this.

On the course, all of the information is available either by you witnessing it or by asking the appropriate questions. I understand this is harder to do in a written form but if we are supposed to make a decision based solely on the information provided then we have to make assumptions.

[Kiwi battler]

He searched for 2 minutes , the clock stopped , he played a wrong ball costing 2 penalty shots
Discovered his error , searched another 2 minutes
Gave up looking , I believe the clock keeps ticking
And walked back ...if his original is found before the clock hits 5 mins ....he MUST come and play the original ball unless he has already dropped another ball
His fellow competitors found his original , but how much time had passed ??
If it was less than 5 mins , he took a 7 on that hole
If it was more "the fact he only searched for 4 mins means nothing" he has played a wrong ball , from a wrong place ...we have a serious breach , and as we assume it wasnt corrected he is DQ'ed

If BC gave all the information , there would be no discussion , no debate...
The answer would be chrystal clear , and we wouldnt have explored all sorts of offshoots of various rules ...

[jvincent]

The five minutes starts once the player or his caddie starts the search. It does not stop/restart based on other actions.

[Kiwi battler]

You might want to go and check that snippit of information

[gbower]

Time spent playing a wrong ball is not counted in the five minutes allowed for the search. As soon as I see a player start searching I start my stopwatch and will stop it when they find what they think is their ball. If they have to start looking again it will start the time again. It's amazing how long the five minutes takes when their looking and very few go the full five when I'm around. In the Tunis though just about everyone there took their full five minutes. If the player heads back to hit another ball and it's over 200 yds I don't think many can make it back and hit in much under two minutes as they aren't going to run expecting someone to find their original ball. Most times I've seen someone head back the fellow competitors don't continue looking.

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"On the course, all of the information is available either by you witnessing it or by asking the appropriate questions. I understand this is harder to do in a written form but if we are supposed to make a decision based solely on the information provided then we have to make assumptions. "

Unless you witness the situation the right questions definitely have to be asked and that can sometimes be difficult getting everything from the players. A lot of these questions here are to get some of the questions asked as if all the information that was obtained on the course was given it wouldn't get anyone thinking about all the different senarios. Have to keep you thinking and learning.

[Kiwi battler]

Thats funny , I had typed out a huge paragraph almost identical to your last one GB
But for some reason didnt post it

I agree 100%

[AAA]

See decisions 27/2 & 5.5

[jvincent]

OK, I stand corrected on the running time vs stop time.

Using that same logic, the time walking back to play the stroke shouldn't be counted since he is not searching during that time either.

[Kiwi battler]

Others were searching , he had stopped only because he had abandoned the ball as lost

But as you know , it isnt lost until that 5 mins is up , or another ball put into play "dropped"

[jvincent]

Exactly. If they found the ball before the 5 minutes as up the time it takes for him to walk back isn't part of the search time. The ball has been "found" and simply needs to be "identified".

[BC MIST]

(1) If that is not correct then the description needs to be more precise.
(2)If not, then say so.
(3) I hate when the rules questions are treated as word games
(4) the real skill is an exercise in reading comprehension. Many of the rules questions are formed this way.
(5) This is, IMHO, not the best way to do this.
(6) if we are supposed to make a decision based solely on the information provided then we have to make assumptions.

It is obvious that because you are not there to see a situation happen nor to hear the account given by the player(s), you have to visualize from the description given, so it IS an exercise in reading comprehension. Hypothetical rulings need to be written without misleading or omitted information, however, it should not be necessary to dot every i and cross every t for you, so that there is, as gerry and kiwi previously indicated, no challenge in determining the final outcome or room for discussion.

In trying to help others with the rules I have written most of the hypotheticals, but almost without exception, they get bogged down in needless questions, assumptions and in many cases, readers stating things that are just not so, because they simply don’t read the initial post. Here are some examples from the last two rulings.

Writer- and then makes the long walk back to the point from which he had hit the original.
Reader - Maybe the guy was a really fast runner

Writer - He then played out the hole with both the dropped… scoring a 6 with the dropped ball
Reader - Did he make a stroke at the first ball he dropped?
How can he score a 6 with it without taking a stroke at it?

Writer - he dropped a ball approximately 5 yards back,
Reader - His score is 6 assuming the ball was dropped withen the allowable area ....and not some 5 yards behind that area

Writer - a player hit his ball into an area of casual water and was lost
Reader - This is a mess ........we need more info Was the original ball lost by definition ?

Writer - he dropped a ball approximately 5 yards back,
Reader - Was the subsituted ball dropped withen a clublength of the nearest point of relief from where it last crossed the margin of the casual water ?

Writer - FWIW, the only fact that I changed from what really happened was the location of the drop of the substituted ball, which was done in the correct place
Reader - SB dropped in the correct place? either a typo ? or the casual water was quite a large area and the 5 yards took him to the correct spot to drop ? and so on and so on.

While I did not graduate from the Carleton University School of Journalism, from the examples above is it not apparent that the major problem with the hypotheticals is your(plural) reading, not my writing?

The “Long Walk Spoiled” scenario involves various rules, wrong ball and wrong place, and definitions, that is, two of the definitions of lost ball. If you know that a player has 5 minutes to find a ball, ”after the players side…have begun looking for it,” you can easily recognize that the player and you, incorrectly believed that the clock is ticking ONLY when he is actually searching for the ball. The definition proves that to be incorrect. Does the clock stop if he has to take a leak? Does the clock stop if he WALKS back to where he hit the original? Obviously not. If he has searched for 4 minutes, he has 1 minute left. After he abandons the search and starts to walk back, can he WALK 225 yards in 60 seconds? That’s almost 4 steps per second!!

I have an interest in the Rules of Golf and thought that making contributions to the hypotheticals could possibly help others. However, in doing so you try to make me look like a fool because you won’t read carefully enough and when you miss something that you should be able to determine, you make comments like those above. Hypothetically speaking, if you shoot the messenger, you won’t get any messages.

I look forward to reading other’s hypotheticals because you sure won’t be reading any more of mine.

[jvincent]

you, incorrectly believed that the clock is ticking ONLY when he is actually searching for the ball. The definition proves that to be incorrect. Does the clock stop if he has to take a leak? Does the clock stop if he WALKS back to where he hit the original?

Just addressing this point. I was actually the one that believed the clock kept running.

Gerry stated that it stopped when the wrong ball was played and then restarted after it was discovered that a wrong ball was played and the clock restarted when the search restarted.

I asked what I thought was a legitimate question about that point since if the player is walking back then he is not searching but others still are. If they found the ball before 5 minutes had elapsed then does the time for the player to get to the ball for identification count as search time?

[Kiwi battler]

Dont stop posting , we are all too busy making fools of ourselves , not you lol

And if you stop us making fools of ourselves than how can we learn ? to err is human blah blah

[Skiddlydidly]

BC, nobody's attacking you. The reason you get so many stupid questions is that we're actually interested, and trying to solve the puzzles.

You're probably not an expert in writing logic/word puzzles (as these, by necessity, are; meaning, we have to ask the right questions to arrive at the right conclusions), and we're certainly not experts at solving them.

I usually stay out of these discussions, as I have trouble following them and have little to add, and just wait for the conclusion.

[AAA]

It is obvious that because you are not there to see a situation happen nor to hear the account given by the player(s), you have to visualize from the description given, so it IS an exercise in reading comprehension. Hypothetical rulings need to be written without misleading or omitted information, however, it should not be necessary to dot every i and cross every t for you, so that there is, as gerry and kiwi previously indicated, no challenge in determining the final outcome or room for discussion.

In trying to help others with the rules I have written most of the hypotheticals, but almost without exception, they get bogged down in needless questions, assumptions and in many cases, readers stating things that are just not so, because they simply don’t read the initial post.

I have an interest in the Rules of Golf and thought that making contributions to the hypotheticals could possibly help others. However, in doing so you try to make me look like a fool because you won’t read carefully enough and when you miss something that you should be able to determine, you make comments like those above. Hypothetically speaking, if you shoot the messenger, you won’t get any messages.

I look forward to reading other’s hypotheticals because you sure won’t be reading any more of mine.

I suggest you don't stop. If nothing else it helps remind people that (1) before they answer they ensure they read the problem carefully and (2) and if it is not clear ask for more information or further clarification.
If you are out in the field and have to make a ruling, never make a statement until you have asked all the questions (even if you have ask twice). What people say is often not what they thought they meant.

[Kiwi battler]

So general concensus has it , unbunch your panties and KEEP POSTING lol