Ricardo lost 6 golfballs while playing yesterday. he bought a box of 12 golf balls, then lost 4 on the course today. he now has 18 golf balls. how many golf balls did ricardo have to begin with?

16 balls.

Step-by-step explanation:

Let x represent the golf balls Ricardo begin with.

Ricardo lost 6 golf balls while playing yesterday. So the number of remaining balls would be .

He bought a box of 12 golf balls, then lost 4 on the course today.

We can represent this information as:

We have been given that now Ricardo has 18 golf balls. So we will get:

Solve for x:

Therefore, Ricardo has 16 balls to begin with.

x = 14

Step-by-step explanation:

-2(2x - 9) = -38

Distrubute the -2

-4x + 18 = -38

       -18      -18

-4x = -56

Divide both sides by -4

x = 14