Provisional Ball
A provisional ball is a backup shot played immediately when the original might be lost outside a hazard or out of bounds, saving the group from having to walk all the way back to the tee if the first ball genuinely can't be found.
When a golfer's shot might be lost (outside of a penalty area, where different rules apply) or might have gone out of bounds, the rules allow them to announce and play a provisional ball immediately, before walking forward to look for the original. If the original ball is found in play, the provisional is simply picked up and abandoned with no penalty; if the original is genuinely lost or out of bounds, the provisional becomes the ball in play, with the appropriate stroke-and-distance penalty already accounted for.
The entire purpose of a provisional ball is pace of play: without it, a golfer whose shot might be lost would need to walk forward, search, fail to find it, and then walk all the way back to the tee or previous spot to replay the shot — a significant delay for everyone in the group and anyone playing behind them. Playing a provisional immediately avoids that double walk in the common case where the original ball turns out to be lost.
A provisional must be announced clearly as such (saying "I'm going to play a provisional") before it is struck, and it can only be played from the location of the previous shot — a golfer cannot walk partway down the fairway and then decide to play a provisional from there.
Example
After a tee shot heads toward a wooded area where it might be lost, a golfer announces "I'll hit a provisional," plays a second ball from the tee, and only walks forward once to search for both.
Why it matters
Playing a provisional ball is one of the simplest ways beginners can keep pace of play reasonable for their whole group, avoiding the long walk back to the tee that a genuinely lost ball would otherwise require.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to announce a provisional ball before hitting it?
Yes — the rules require clearly announcing the intention to play a provisional ball before it is struck. Without that announcement, a second ball played from the same spot is treated as the ball in play, not a provisional.
Related terms
- Ready Golf (Pace of Play)"Ready golf" means playing shots in whichever order gets the group moving fastest — whoever is ready hits, rather than strictly waiting for the golfer farthest from the hole — a widely encouraged practice in casual and recreational rounds to keep pace of play reasonable.
- MulliganA mulligan is an informal "do-over" — hitting a second ball after a poor shot without counting the first one — that has no basis in the actual rules of golf and is purely a casual, friendly-round convention.
- Match Play vs Stroke PlayStroke play scores every shot across the whole round for a cumulative total; match play scores hole by hole, awarding each hole to whoever takes fewer strokes on it, so a single bad hole only costs one point, not a pile of extra strokes.
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