Scenario

1. Joe hits his white striped ball off the 1st tee back, and it goes right.

2. Joe gets to his ball and hits his 2nd shot but not very well or far.

3. Joe hits his 3rd shot, and it hit the tree and drops in front of him, about 8 feet away.

4. Joe gets ready to take his 4th shot and realizes it is not his ball. Joe marks the location with his yellow striped ball and puts the other (wrong) ball back to its original location.

5. Chris comes over, thinking that Joe was switching balls, but the fact was that Joe did not know where his original ball was and was going to hit his dropped ball, but Chris found and notified Joe of the location of his original ball before hitting his dropped ball.

6. Joe plays his original ball and with his two-stroke penalty, scoring a 10.

WHAT JOE SHOULD HAVE DONE WHEN HE REALIZE HE HAD HIT THE WRONG BALL WAS TO CALL HIS GROUP FOR A RULING.

Had Joe called for a ruling, then we would not have had all of this misinformation and misunderstanding. Let this be a lesson to everyone.

Rule 15-3b:

If a competitor makes a stroke or strokes at a wrong ball, he incurs a penalty of two strokes.

The competitor must correct his mistake by playing the correct ball or by proceeding under the Rules. If he fails to correct his mistake before making a stroke on the next teeing ground or, in the case of the last hole of the round, fails to declare his intention to correct his mistake before leaving the putting green, he is disqualified.

Strokes made by a competitor with a wrong ball do not count in his score. If the wrong ball belongs to another competitor, its owner must place a ball on the spot from which the wrong ball was first played.

The player only incurs a two-stroke penalty for playing a wrong ball and does not incur any strokes made at a wrong ball.

So the questions are:

1. Did Joe hit the wrong ball? Yes

2. Did Joe find his original ball within 3 minutes? Yes, well, Chris found it.

3. Did Joe finish the hole with his original ball? Yes.

4. Did Joe fail to correct his mistake before making a stroke at the next tee box? No.

5. Did Joe take a two-stroke penalty? Yes

The truth of the matter is that Joe was “dumb luck” lucky and that the Golf Gods, for whatever reason, smiled on him.

The Committee’s finding is that Chris did the right thing under Broken Joe Golf Rule 16: Witnessing a Violation. However, the Committee is not going to rule on Chris’s complaint that Joe was “going to play” his yellow striped ball and should incur a penalty. Contrary to Chris’s idea that thinking about doing something is the same as actually doing it. Had Joe actually played his yellow striped ball then the Committee would be making a ruling on that complaint, but since that did not happen, there is no ruling for the Competition Committee to make on that subject.

The Competition Committee finds that Joe's only penalty is the 2 stroke penalty for hitting the wrong ball.

The Commissioner, not fully satisfied with the Competition Committe's ruling, sends the Competition Committee to Dave DiRico’s Golf and Racquet store in West Springfield to get a second opinion. The Committee meets with Dave DiRico, PGA Professional, and at the end of the meeting, Dave confirms the Competition Committee’s ruling. By the way, we saw Nine Iron walking around the store.

Ruling 2.

Joe also complains about the second group, “driving on the first group.” The Committee finds that this complaint is without merit since the first tee is a blind tee shot and the second group had no way of knowing that Joe was still playing his ball and had not yet reached the green.

In solidarity,

Competition Committee