Sure, but new lost ball rule makes it a non-issue. Either way, unless my bag has to be a long ways from where I'm playing from, how long does it take to grab another one? Provisionals are a very rare thing IME. Certainly not worthy of always having an extra ball on me.

interesting.

spare ball in left pocket.
3-4 tees in right pocket
two hat marker magnets (one for me, one for the ball of that slow ass still walking up the fairway)
large binder clip on my belt in the back for the times I need to walk a distance to my ball from cart. (one of the magnet covers on my range finder ldo)

That's just a local rule though - I certainly hope most courses implement it, but so far none of my local ones have.

What's the new lost ball rule?

not straight from the rules, but an article about the new ones.

Courses may implement a Local Rule (not for competition) that offers an alternative to the stroke-and-distance penalty for lost balls or shots hit out-of-bounds. A player may drop a ball anywhere between where the original ball was believed to come to rest (or went out-of-bounds) and just into the edge of the fairway, but no nearer the hole. The golfer takes a two-stroke penalty and plays on instead of returning to the tee. This way, the Local Rule mimics your score if you had played a decent provisional ball.

Never came around on hat magnet ball markers. Always feel like it messes up the balance of the hat and makes my head feel funny during the swing.

I'm a 3-4 tees (new or broken) and ball mark repair tool in my left pocket, ball marker in my right pocket kind of guy. Glove in back right pocket. Left handed golfer obv.

Under the old rule couldn't you drop anywhere on a line of between where the ball went out and you hit it from and incur just a 1 shot penalty?

Started pulling out all the surplus equipment I picked up last year and have rejected, good lord I bought a lot of stuff. Time to start cutting.

Still, thinking about picking up a light weight driver shaft after liking the one I have in my 3 wood, not sure what it's going to be though.

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/ho...lty-areas.html

Yeah, unfortunately it is "not for competition" so most won't use it. My regular group uses it to speed up play though. Tournaments will always be the old rule.

Nope. Lost ball or ball out of bounds meant you had to rehit from original spot plus 1 stroke penalty. Keep in mind, as noted above, this new rule is not an actual USGA rule that is automatically in play. It is an option as a local rule which means golf courses are allowed to use it as a rule at their particular course if they decide to. So, basically you are only using the new rule if everyone in your group agrees or if the course you are playing has it in their rules. Any tournaments will not be using it unless noted.

Our FSGA one day events actually employ the new lost ball local rule. They also have a local rule of a max 10 shots per hole. Granted these are very casual events. All other major FSGA events do not have this rule in place.

Every golfer in the world should have their own 10 shot rule. If you can't do it in 10, it just wasn't meant to be.

I would just go ahead and make it 8 shots. Like a universal ESC but apply it to gross scores.

seconded

When we play we cater our rules to bad players even more. No more than double par on any hole. Get your blowups out on the par 3s!

Spieth made a 4 footer to save an 8 yesterday...

On the 8th hole right now and my driver head just came lose. It's still on but flutters big time when I try to hit it so it's done for the day. It's a hand me down but is this something Dicks or a pro shop can fix? Or am I SOL?

As long as the head itself is okay should be able to get it re-shafted with no issue.

Yea the guy at the pro shop said they can't fix it but looks like the glue is just worn off. Would a place like Dicks be able to fix this? Or any other suggestions?

Easy fix for any place that does club repair.

I don't think Dicks repairs clubs.

What's a good gambling game on the course? I tend to like bingo, bango, bongo because it seems to be a pretty well-balanced game. There is a varying range of talent and frequency in which we play. We are all old college friends. Varying skill levels, but I'm guessing there is about a 10-15 stroke difference between the best and worst player.

we typically play a modified version of a game i'm sure many other folks have played. it probably known by a certain name in other regions but i've never heard it called anything specific other than 'the usual hi-low'.
the foursome splits in to two teams determined by random draw. it's a net game so one twosome is usually giving the other side strokes (add up the HCs for each team and the difference are the strokes given).

the jist: the team with the best of the two low scores on each hole gets a point, the team with the best of the two high scores on each hole gets a point, and strokes can only be applied to the high score. i.e team 1 scores are 4 and 6, team 2 scores are 3 and 7. team 2 wins the low 3-4 and team 1 wins the high 6-7 unless team 2 gets a stroke to tie the high.

extra points are given on each hole for birdies, two for an eagle, one for a sandy par (sand save from a greenside bunker), one for a chip in (including a putt from off the green), one for a KP on par 3s (but you have to make par or better). sometimes we'll give a point for making par or better after being in a fairway bunker (sandzie) or may even give a point for a barkie (par or better after hitting a tree).

we usually keep things casual and play for $1 a point. the winning twosome buys the losers the first round.

If they gave points to hitting #3 off the tee and managing to save bogey, I would be the king of that game.

we often have three or more foursomes playing at the same time. if so, we'll play a different game. everyone throws in $10 or $20 and we'll play the best two net low scores from each foursome against the other foursomes. the winners are typically in the -18 to -24 range.
if you happen to be a threesome, you pick your rotation on the first tee and one player will double count their score on 1, the second player on 2, etc. and the rotation remains the same throughout the round. the strategy for a threesome is to see if your rotation can catch three par 3s or three par 5s with friendly hole HCs to double your scores.

typically the 2nd place team gets their money back and the winners take the rest.

the golden ticket is to be paired with a player that carries a HC over 18 and finds a way to par or better a hole when they get two strokes.