Back to the Rose Ladies Series (#RoseLadiesGolf) and Meghan MacLaren was the winner at Moor Park yesterday edging out Liz Young (second for the second week running) and the amateur Samantha Fuller. She must have played some really good golf with 4 birdies and an eagle to put her at 6 under par after 10 holes. However playing the 11th she came unstuck because she played the wrong ball. I don’t know the specific circumstances but what is the ruling?
It doesn’t matter how many strokes you play with a wrong ball. Under Rule 6.3c you will incur the general penalty (2 strokes or loss of hole) as soon as you make your first stroke at it. (Note that you still incur this penalty even with an air shot!) You MUST also correct your mistake by going back and playing your original ball from its original place (but you can substitute a ball if someone else has played yours).
As you can see from the copy of her tweet she was able to poke a little fun at herself after her 2 stroke victory. It would have been a whole lot more painful if the 2 penalty strokes had moved her from being 1 stroke in front to 1 stroke behind. The lesson for us all is to double check that it is your own ball before you play it, or you could end up adding 2 strokes to your score quite needlessly.
Anyway, well played @lizyounggolf and @sammyfuller99 but many congratulations to @meg_maclaren
Golf Rules Guru 