While searching for a ball in any area of the course, you are always allowed to “take reasonable actions to find and identify your ball”. But how does this work in a situation where it may be plugged in sand, for example, and how do you proceed once you find it in such a scenario? Chris Wallace, Rules manager at The R&A, explains…
First, you will obviously have to search for and find the ball before you can do anything else. As mentioned above, you are allowed to take reasonable actions to find your ball and this can include moving sand or water and moving or bending grass, bushes, tree branches and other growing or attached natural objects. Taking any of these actions will not result in a penalty, so a player is entitled to search in the sand using their hands, feet, a club or other objects such as a rake.
If the ball is moved during this search process – quite likely if it’s buried under
