Q. I have problems when in the greenside mounding and when my ball is on an upslope it goes higher than normal and is tough to judge how hard to hit it. How should I approach this lie?
A. Many golfers forget that when they are advancing the ball up a slope, the position the body is in effectively increases the loft of their club. Right-handed golfers will have their right foot a lot lower than their left and their normal sand wedge loft of 56 degrees is now probably a lob wedge loft of 60 degrees or more. One solution is practice and experience while the other is simply to choose a lower lofted club to maintain your normal short shot height. This may result in using an 8 or 9 iron rather than your normal sand or pitching wedge. Just make your normal swing and you will have more control. Make sure that you keep your shoulders level with the slope at the address position in order to create the desired ball flight height and be aware that the tendency is to pull the ball to the left of your target.
Q. What happens if I hit a ball out of bounds then hit a provisional but walk down and can’t find the provisional. Do I have to go back to the tee?
A. If you lose your original ball, your provisional becomes the ball in play (with the penalty stroke). If that is lost as well, you again have stroke-and-distance. In this situation, you should hit a second provisional, which only becomes in-play if you lose the first two. You can continue hitting a provisional ball until you are sure you haven’t lost a ball up to the point where you determine the previous ball lies. Also, normally you get five minutes to look for your original ball, then if not found, five more minutes for your provisional; however, if they’re in the same area, then you only get five minutes to find either of them.
Finally, if you do hit multiple provisional balls, be absolutely sure that you can identify conclusively which ball is which. If you can’t, even if you find a ball, you cannot identify it properly so it is lost and it is a long sad walk back to the tee box.