Answer:
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 [tex]x-6[/tex].
He bought a box of 12 golf balls, then lost 4 on the course today.
We can represent this information as:
[tex]x-6+12-4[/tex]
We have been given that now Ricardo has 18 golf balls. So we will get:
[tex]x-6+12-4=18[/tex]
Solve for x:
[tex]x+2=18[/tex]
[tex]x+2-2=18-2[/tex]
[tex]x=16[/tex]
Therefore, Ricardo has 16 balls to begin with.
