On many courses there are more leaves on the course than bare grass patches. When you hit a pure shot right down the middle, walk up to it and can't find it, how many of you go back and re hit? How do most people keep score on the forum. Do you just forget about keeping score? Lately I can go out and lose 6-12 balls in the fallen leaves. Under normal conditions I might loose one.
For me it depends on the situation. If you are playing a match, then you rehit or lost ball penalty. For fun rounds (they all should be fun) drop and hit again, no penalty. Some call this the Fall leaf rule.
No, I always understood that if you lose a ball in the leaves but have a reasonable knowledge where it is, you can take a drop as close to where you think it would be. No penalty. I think that's what's called for in the Rules of Golf.
Yep, my golf buddies all play the Fall Ball Leaves Rule - but I'm not sure its an official USGA rule. LOL If everyone on the course went back to re-hit due to a ball lost in the leaves, a round would take forever to complete!
Ditto on the fall leaf rule. It happen to me last weekend...right down the middle...no ball. Our foursome was playing its normal weekend small stakes and one of the opponents just told me, "Go ahead and drop without penalty." Then we took his money. Good rule.
Ditto here. I think I lost about 1/2 dozen yesterday in leaves in the fairway and just off. I lost one that I saw land & stop a couple of yards in back of the green. I played with balls out of my headed-for-the-shag-bag pocket after the 2nd one.
Amazingly, I've played my last two rounds without losing a single ball...a true feat for me in the conditions I was in (NO leaves raked up, grass not mowed in at least a week). Typically, I go with the general area thing as well...I remember playing it that way in high school matches.
Although technically, according to rule 27-1, the ball is still lost despite being in the leaves and you should go back and re-hit.
At this point in the season I'm just out for fun with my buddies, so I'll just drop in the area where it should be with no penalty. We ran into this problem this past weekend a few times....but I do enjoy being on the golf course during this time to check out the beautiful NE foliage.
I believe the course can adopt a local rule allowing a free drop. We actually have a sign on the counter in the pro shop stating the leaf rule. Without it, our rounds will jump to 5 hours or more.
We dont have a problem with leaves because most of the trees are ucalipts and they dont drop em but we do have a problem with crows picking them up and flying away with em. We have a local rule that states if a ball is known to be in the fairway and its not there when you get there it may be assumed that a crow has taken it and its a free drop. One day it helped a mate, he stuck a lwedge on a short par 4 about 6 inches away and as we were walking up to the green a crow came down and knocked it in the hole, eagle 2. We had a laugh and said he should be disqualified for havin 15 clubs in the bag
I just played on Saturday and lost three balls in piles of leaves up against fences. I didn't want to go back and hit it in the interest of time, so I just dropped and took a stroke. On one hole I hit over a lateral water hazard into the rough between two fairways. It was in bounds, but where I hit the ground was covered with leaves. I took the full five minutes looking becuase nobody was behind us at this point. No ball! Wide open short grass rough, but no ball. I was sure it went over the lateral water hazard, but I played as if I lost it in the lateral water hazard. Same general outcome in both situations. I felt what I did was pretty fair while not impeding play or needlessly running around the course. Besides I shot a 59 for nine holes so its not like I was breaking a club record or anything.
November 8th, 2005, 10:27 AM
Linear Mode
Similar Threads
