One thing almost every golfer has experienced is the feeling of watching a ball splash into water. When this happens, the Rules give us options as to how we can proceed to get back on dry land if so desired, and where to drop a ball if the original is lost in the water, says David Wilson, rules manager at The R&A.
Bodies of water on the course are defined as penalty areas, and these are marked as either yellow or red using stakes or lines. If a player’s ball is known or virtually certain to have come to rest in a penalty area, the player may proceed using one of a number of options available.
The player may play the ball as it lies in the penalty area or they can proceed under stroke-and-distance. But more commonly used options are to either take back-on-the-line relief or lateral relief (the latter available for red penalty areas only), both of which use the
