ShopTalk: Rules

[tflan]

I'm continually amazed at how little long-time golfers know about the Rules. This happened yesterday. One of our group hit a ball into the rough from the tee. He and the rest of us searched for it for a long time. His partner, a rules maven, told him to go back to the tee and hit a "provisional" while he, the partner, continued to search. The guy went back and hit another ball. In the meantime, the partner found the original ball. The player continued play with his original ball and claimed a score of 6 on the par 5 hole. "Sorry, I said, you had 8." The guy went ballistic. He said he claimed he was hitting a provisional. I told him it was too late. In the first instance, in order to claim a provisional he had to hit it from the tee before any of us left the tee in search of his ball (Rule 27.2) Second, even if the Rules allowed him to proceed in the manner he did, he and his partner spent considerably more than the allotted 5 minutes to find the ball. Further, if he were to claim a lost ball, he would have had to hit another ball from the approximate place where the first ball was presumed lost. Showing him the Rule book didn't assuage him or the Rules Maven partner. They insisted I was an ass for calling the penalty. "Hell," I told them, "I don't write the rules, I just know what the basics are, and you proceeded incorrectly."   During another round with the same 2 guys, the guy with the lost ball was called for tamping down spike marks. The Rules Maven informed me that Local Rules always take precedence over the Rules of Golf! I directed him to the Rules section that discusses this very subject. The guy still wants to argue the point. Too bad. Again, I don't write 'em, I just read 'em. Rule 27 is pretty clear and simple to understand.   TFlan