3 Reasons To Tell A Golf Ball Goodbye On The Course

Losing one golf ball is typical for many golfers over the course of 18 holes. Losing two balls is also common and can be a bit disappointing. Losing three balls or more officially qualifies as embarrassing and monetarily costly. To keep from giving unintended donations to the course, many folks often conduct hasty and ineffective searches for their ball, which can be streamlined and expedited by a few specific tips and some common sense. While looking for a lost golf ball is certainly nothing to be embarrassed about, here are three clear and present scenarios where you should immediately regard the golf ball as gone, thus allowing yourself to mentally and physically move on.

Making a Splash

After taking a moment to enjoy the calmness and beauty of a golf course pond or lake, many recreational golfers proceed to smack a ball or two into a watery grave. Unless the ball is literally on the edge of the water with part of the white sitting above the water line, it should be left alone. A ball buried only a few inches deep only a foot or two off the edge of the water may look like it is asking to be rescued, but soft lake bottoms and incredibly slippery algae and mud can cause accidents and ruin days much quicker than a lost ball. Balls should only be retrieved out of ponds and lakes by divers with scuba gear, which are often hired by the pro shop. This creates a sad situation where you will be able to buy your ball a second time from the used bin at the pro shop. Smart shoppers know that buying used balls online is a less expensive and more reliable method.

Wrong Side of the Fence

It can be very tempting to go over a climbable fence and snag a ball that is well within eyesight -- especially when the golf ball has landed in a farm or other massive region where people are not present -- but this should actually be avoided entirely. Golfers have told stories of finding random dangers such as bear traps, wild pigs and even rifle-wielding landowners while on the other side of fence. A man from upstate New York was recently shot with a BB gun by an overzealous rancher when he hopped a short barbed wire fence on the side of a par-5 and wandered onto private property to retrieve a badly hooked tee shot. While this is an isolated situation, it drives home the point that golf balls hit over fences and into marked off areas should be left alone. Besides, any ball that would run away from you and seek out the safety of a different owner should not have the honor of being tapped in for birdie.

Finding the Roughest Rough

This situation plagues golfers on every level of competition, including the PGA Tour. Golf courses all over the United States are lined with tall grasses that often begin only feet from the edges of fairways. Even with the benefit of having trained professionals waiting on fairways to identify and locate shots that land in major rough, professional players sometimes are unable to find their ball and forced to take a costly penalty stroke and drop. Recreational golfers that blast a shot into high grasses or other dense shrubbery are forced to take a wild guess at where the ball ended up before embarking on a long-shot search that is likely to lead to frustration, wasted time and interrupted rhythm. Let a ball that finds extreme rough rest in peace