Kerry

Very informative. Thank you gentlemen. Clears up a lot. Appreciate it.

Situation: I drove the ball down the right side of a tree lined fairway. I did “not” hit a provisional ball from the tee box as rough is light & balls normally easy to find. The right side trees & rough are internal to the golf course (no OB) as there is an adjacent parallel fairway further right. My opponents thought I may have hit the trees, I felt I cleared the trees & was further down, closer to the green. After less than 2 minutes searching for my ball my opponents thought I should invoke the new rule and drop (2 stroke penalty) on the near fairway perpendicular to their perceived point of entry & within 2 club lengths of that. Question #1 - before taking the drop, may I declare the penalty drop & subsequent stroke as “provisional”? … after driving down the cart path I found my original ball further down (as I expected). Question #2 - after playing the “provisional” ball does the “search time” for my original ball reset to 3 minutes or is there 1 minute+ search time left? Question #3 - May I now play my original tee shot (hitting two) without any penalty? Thanks kindly for any assistance on this ruling.