Nobody wants to stand around for the better part of five and a half hours, watching other people play golf up ahead, while you’re, well, just standing there.

There was a rule put into place by the people who write the rules of golf. This is the provisional ball rule. This rule is intended to speed up play.

Some people, that is people who are new seem to think the provisional ball is a “mulligan” or a “do-over”. A provisional ball is not a mulligan or do-over. The provisional ball is legal and within the rules of golf. It will help to keep the pace of play better when it is used correctly.

Use the provisional ball if you think you hit your ball out of bounds. Also use the provisional ball if you think you lost your ball outside a hazard. There are some times when you can’t use the provisional ball. Those times are when you think that your ball went into a hazard or a lateral hazard.

This is how it works: There are times when you hit the ball and you can’t find it. Or you hit it and you know it is in bounds, you say out loud “provisional ball”, and then proceed. You have to say “provisional ball”. You can’t say “I’ll hit again”.

You then can play strokes on the provisional ball up to the point where you believe your original ball to be.

What this does, it saves time. If you did not play the provisional ball, you would have to walk back to where you hit the ball to play another, but the provisional ball has done this for you.

This is how the scoring would go: What you need to do is count all the stokes you made on the original ball. Then you have a penalty stroke. Then count all the strokes that you made on the provisional ball.Now this is what happened, you hit your tee shot OB, so you would have to count that shot, you would then have a penalty stroke for hitting the ball OB, and don’t forget you hit your provisional ball up to this point. So you are lying 3 and hitting 4.

OK, here is another scenario, you go up to where you thought the ball was lost and you find the ball in bounds and you hit a provisional ball, what do you do?

Easy, the provisional ball is like it has never been played. Just go and pick up your provisional ball. Any shots that you played on the provisional ball you don’t need to count. Now all you have to do is just continue to play the original ball.

Ok, you are on the tee and you bang out a fade of 300 yards and you think it went OB. Now you are mad and you have lost your rhythm and you just top the ball 3 or 4 times down the fairway until you reach the point of the original ball. There is nothing finer than finding that original ball and, poof, all those topped shots on the provisional go away because from a scoring standpoint, they never happened.

If you’re heading to Carlsbad Caverns or the chic galleries of Santa Fe, golf in New Mexico, once a word-of-mouth secret among avid golfers, is a secret no longer.

With 4 distinct destinations for golfing in the Land of Enchantment, each one of them boasts about the many course that are located in each area. Not like other parts of the country, golf in New Mexico is at a fair value for high desert golfing. Go to Phoenix in the winter months and see how much you pay for golf there, that is not the case in New Mexico. If you would like to challenge yourself with courses that challenge your shot making ability but are still fair and at the same time see some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States, then New Mexico golf is something you have to try.

Northern section for golf New Mexico: Taos Country Club, Black Mesa Golf Club near Espanola and Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe are all modified desert-links courses winding across the high plateau. East of Taos is Angel Fire Golf Club, a mountain course. The Trent Jones family name is no stranger to New Mexico golf. Just south of Santa Fe is Pueblo de Cochiti golf course. Originally designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., but has recently been updated by his son, Robert Trent Jones III.

Golf New Mexico’s Central area: East of Albuquerque on the other side of the Sandia mountains is Paa-Ko Ridge golf club. This is probably considered the crown jewel of the golf courses in the central area of the state. But not to forget the others like Santa Ana golf club and its sister course Twin Warriors golf club, which you might remember just hosted the 2009 Professional Club Pro’s championship. There is also Sandia golf club and all of these courses are located north of the town of Albuquerque. All of these courses offer the finest in resort golf that you can find in the state. The University of New Mexico Championship Golf Course, a hilly test and frequent venue of NCAA events, is just a 7-iron from the Albuquerque airport rental-car center. Only seven minutes south on Interstate 25 is the 27-hole Isleta Eagle Golf Course, part of the Isleta Casino & Resort.

Southeast section for golfing in New Mexico: Lincoln County, N.M., is where Billy the Kid did most of his gun-toting and Ruidoso lies in the heart of the Kid’s old stomping grounds. Nearby in Ruidoso are several of the Ted Robinson designs. These designs include the Inn of the Mountain Gods, Cree Meadow, Rainmakers which is the newest of the courses and the Links at Sierra Blanca. If you love mountain courses and Ponderosa pines then you are going to love these courses as they roll up and down the mountain side. In Roswell, where two aliens bought it in a 1947 space-ship crash, play the Spring River and New Mexico Military Institute golf courses. There is a low cost municipal course located in Carlsbad called the Lake Carlsbad golf course.

Southern section for Golfing in New Mexico: Looking for a nice tight parkland layout. Then Socorro and the New Mexico Tech golf course is your course. Socorro is located between Socorro and Las Cruces. Located in the Sonorran Desert, located in Elephant Butte, NM, is some of the finest golf in New Mexico and that is the Sierra del Rio golf course. Elephant Butte is located south of Socorro and north of Las Cruces. Traveling south from Elephant Butte to Las Cruces we have the New Mexico State University golf course and the Sonoma Ranch Golf club.Located south of Las Cruces is the beautiful Butterfield Trail which is located in El Paso, Texas. This is the only tom Fazio design in all directions for hundreds of miles.

Out of the way but worth the drive if you want to explore golf in New Mexico elsewhere: Pinon Hills Golf Course in Farmington, N.M., in the Four Corners area; Silver City Golf Course in the Southwest New Mexico; west from Albuquerque about 40 miles is Grants, New Mexico and the Coyote del Malpais golf course.

As you can see golf in New Mexico in the land of enchantment is something that you need to try and enjoy.