Kevin Na

[David_Tepper]

Kevin Na, golf folk hero! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/sports/16golf.html?_r=1&hp

[Brent Hutto]

You can't "call a ball lost". It is or it isn't. But at any spot on the course you can declare your lie to be unplayable, which actually offers more options than a lost ball. If it's lost you have to return to where you played the previous shot. If it's unplayable you can return to where you played the previous shot if you like but you also get the option of dropping.

What you can never do is proceed to hit another shot, not like the result and then go back to where you hit the next-to-last shot. That's not part of golf, never was. And any proposal to make that an option within the Rules was hardly a serious one IMHO. If out of hubris or bad judgment you try to play the ball from a spot that can't be played from, you are then stuck with the result.

And if you can't deal with that sort of thing, you always have the "option" of picking up and take a DQ from the tournament. Then stick to match play. Or tennis.

[Bill_McBride]

I don't think they can just call the ball lost. The gallery was looking right at it.

Well that would be the flaw in my plan.  It would have to be someplace where nobody was right around to see it.

If declaring it lost was not an option, as the caddy I would have said go back and hit 5 from the tee.

Phil Mickelsen had a ball he hoped was lost at Torrey Pines a few years ago, down in one of those canyons with his provisional in the fairway. He was mightily pissed off when some well-meaning soul found it!

[Melvyn Morrow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aWTXoNzuk8c#at=17

[JLahrman]

You can't "call a ball lost". It is or it isn't. But at any spot on the course you can declare your lie to be unplayable, which actually offers more options than a lost ball. If it's lost you have to return to where you played the previous shot. If it's unplayable you can return to where you played the previous shot if you like but you also get the option of dropping.

I was thinking of Bill McBride's example with Phil Mickelson a few years ago.

You can declare a ball lost without looking for it.  Since he had hit his provisional into the fairway (as I understand it) he probably should have declared his second drive lost and then played the provisional.

Again though, there were spectators over there and he might not have had a chance to call off the search.

[Pete_Pittock]

a few years ago there was talk of a new option for unplayable that would allow you to go back to any spot already played from.Was that rule not passed?It sounded like he only had the three options and was forced to play from the junk once he started.

If there was talk about this a few years ago, rest assured it wasn't being done by the rulemakers.

[Ronald Montesano]

1...Phil tried to get the guy out of the canyon, but the guy persisted and found the ball. Now this one has me thinking...if it were a lateral hazard, Phil could still have gone back to the tee and played three, so I don't understand what the issue was.

2...Na is infamous for firing caddies at the drop of a hat, or a stroke. The caddie's nervousness was understandable; Na might have fired him on the spot for any reason.

3...I couldn't believe that Na was smiling the whole time...I thought it was the penultimate step to the on-camera breakdown.

[Ronald Montesano]

By the way, how funny would it have been if someone had called in and questioned the score?

[Bill_McBride]

1...Phil tried to get the guy out of the canyon, but the guy persisted and found the ball. Now this one has me thinking...if it were a lateral hazard, Phil could still have gone back to the tee and played three, so I don't understand what the issue was.

Apparently it's not a lateral because Phil could have dropped where his tee shot crossed the hazard line and been hitting his third.  If it's not a hazard, Phil had to deal with the lost ball rule, or unplayable after the ball is found.

[JESII]

Phil was upset that the guy found it because he had already hit his provisional and it was perfect. If, as happened, the guy in the canyon found his ball he would have to either play it or go back to the tee...which is what happened.

[Ronald Montesano]

So here's the question:  let's say Phil declares the found ball unplayable...can he play the provisional in the middle of the fairway or does he THEN have to go back and re-tee?

[JESII]

Back to the tee...exactly how it played out.

[Brent Hutto]

If I recall correctly, the provisional becomes the ball in play at the moment you play a stroke from beyond where the original ball was lost. You can actually hit the provisional more than once and then still find and have to play the original ball.

But in Phil's case since the provisional was a good drive in the fairway, he would have needed to sprint to the provisional and play a stroke with it (thereby causing it to become the ball in play) before "the guy" found his original ball. Phil's not much of a sprinter though. 

I've had the experience before of hitting a ball into the woods, playing a provisional which also is mishit into trouble, then taking a couple of strokes to advance the provisional a couple hundred yards out in the fairway. Since only at that point has my provisional passed the likely spot of the original ball it's worth taking a quick look before playing that next shot, hoping to find the original and be able to play it. Then again, by that point I'm so fried I'm going to make a snowman or worse no matter what happens!

[JLahrman]

Exactly...if you like your provisional, don't let anybody go near where your first drive landed.  I believe you then are stuck with that first ball.  If you want to declare the first ball unplayable and take the option where you go back to the previous spot, you have to go back and actually rehit.  You can't play the provisional, it is out of the equation once you've found the first one.

[Kalen Braley]

Exactly...if you like your provisional, don't let anybody go near where your first drive landed.  I believe you then are stuck with that first ball.

Exactly,

Ususally the pros get a "benefit" by having spectators and spotters...but this is one of the few cases where its a detriment. I doubt anyone in my 4some would have gone in there looking for it if I said I'll just play my provisional!