This clip from a recent Level Two Golf Rules Clinic at River Forest Country Club walks through unplayable ball rule and provisional ball rule details.
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my ball was in a bunker and it was you know fried egg like I cannot hit this ball in the bunker and so I’m going to go ahead and just drop over here where I am and my husband you can’t do that the caddy said no no no if you’re going to take unplayable relief for an unplayable ball in a bunker you have to stay in the bunker and is that what all of you understand no you don’t you know there’s an option you can go longer and take a two shop right yes you can that’s back on the line outside the bunker can you do anything else so also you can take stroke and distance what I like to call the Louis Vuitton rule you you can take stroke and distance from anywhere on the course at any time for just one so even if your ball is in that bunker and you feel it’s up against a lip fried egg for whatever reason you don’t feel like hitting it today or any day like that you know it won’t go well you can also take it out stroke and distance and take a drop at knee height from the location of your last shot that stroke and distance in general is 18.1 but it’s also an option under your penalty area rules on 17 or unplayable ball rules as well and this is I call it the Louis Vuitton because I teach the women this Rule and I go if you go home you’re going to talk to your husband and go hey you know I can come out of the bunker if I don’t like it for one and they’re going to go no you can’t it’s two and you’re going to go well this is what Marcel said and they’re going to go who the heck is Marcela she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and they’re going to go honey I’ll bet you you want to bet a you want to bet a purse and make it a good one make it AO Vuitton so it’s one of those very not uh not well-known rules and there’s going to be a few of those today and that you might even question but you’ll find out eventually you probably don’t want to question me cuz I’m I’m probably going to be going to be right 99% of the time so you’re saying that at stroke and distance I go back to where I hit it so it could be 150 yards back that’s right and so be 20 yard back it could be 20 I could be just hitting a simple 60 yard approach shot over a bunker and I look up and didn’t go well it’s now it’s plugged super soft or it’s on the on the lip and I just take a drop right there where I just was now you can even substitute a ball when you’re using stroke in distance so if I see it up there or I say I hit it to a like a brona or an area of a course that you know is um bad you’ve been there and you know that other unplayable ball options aren’t great either and we’ll talk about those but you know that those aren’t going to look good either because there’s bushes and rocks everywhere in that little terrain and you go I don’t even need to go up and get it I I’m not going to like it if I find it I’m going to want to come back stroke and distance anyway let me take another ball out and drop right here stroke broken distance that be a provisional if you would like to hit a provisional you have two um reasons that you may hit a provisional and that would be if you think your ball is out of bounds or if you think your ball might be lost somewhere on the course other than in a penalty area if the only place you can your ball can be lost is inside a penalty area remember those are those red areas if the only place it could be lost is there then you can’t hit a provisional and you’re just going to proceed with your penalty area rule 17 options but if it’s possible that your ball could be lost somewhere other than the penalty area on the course then you can always hit a provisional now if you do that that’s fine but and and if you feel like when you get up to this you know 5 foot wide Bush that you know it’s in if you want to find it and then measure for your lateral relief right within two Club lengths of it no closer to the hole and that lateral relief is from where the ball is sitting it’s not from the edge of it right that’s where you have to start to measure your two Club lengths if you know this golf course and you know that all around those bushes anyway are more rocks and Pebbles and you’re not going to enjoy it even if you could find it then you might say I don’t even need to go up and find it let me just go now and not hit a provisional because I can grab my $5 ball on my way if I’m calling it stroke and distance it’s not a provisional and therefore I can find my ball and it’s not my ball in play Because when we’ve hit a provisional ball which is the ball that you hit if you think your ball might be lost somewhere other than a penalty area or it might be out of bounds then you hit it just in case a provisional ball you announce I’m hitting a provisional and you must announce that but you can say and this one’s a tiess four with the Green Dot you can say that you should know that it looks different or it’s identified different because you want to make sure in case you hit two right next to each other which does happen um so you announc you’re hitting that provisional and you hit that provisional now if you find your original ball within 3 minutes of searching for it you must play that ball now you might have to take relief from it take an unplayable do some other things but when you’ve named did a provisional and you find it within 3 minutes you must that’s your ball in play you must abandon the other one and you have abandon your provisional your original ball is in play does that make sense so if I if I call it stroke and distance then no problem I hit it my ball’s in play and that ball in the bush if I see it on my way up I can grab it and make sure it looks pretty clean and keep that ball would say on the tea is playing stroke and distance yes or you can say Louis Vuitton but I think you might get laughed at for the minut understand yeah
