I had a discussion with my club pro recently regarding whether you need to actually find your ball to declare it unplayable and take stroke and distance.
Obviously, to take back on the line or 2 club lengths you need to find it to get the reference point. But for S&D that is irrelevant.
In the scenario where you hit it off the tee into deep bushes and expect that even if you do find it it won't be very pleasant. To not waste time searching you declare it unplayable and just take S&D. rather than look.
His take on it was that you need to actually find it to be able to decide if it is unplayable or not (not illogical). My thought was that if I can declare it unplayable at any time in any place, and its exact location has no bearing on where I hit from, and I cannot declare it 'lost', I can take S&D for unplayable, rather than hit provisional and not bother looking. And avoid the potential risk one of my group finding it to give me a pig of a second shot.
I couldn't find a clear answer in the rules app. though I would interpret what I found as it being my thoughts that are correct. Can any of you point me to a clarification.