My ball 'might' be in a pond, but I can't find it. Can I just take a...

When it comes to keeping an eye on their shots headed toward water, professional golfers usually have the benefit of cameras, marshals and galleries to help. Even so, that hasn’t kept tour pros from disagreeing at times over exactly where a ball might have crossed into a penalty area and where the player who hit the shot should take a drop.

A famous example of this came during the first round of the 2024 Players Championship. On the seventh hole at TPC Sawgrass, Rory McIlroy hit an errant tee shot that hooked into the water left of the fairway. It was one of the few spots on the course that did not have a camera with a clear view of the ball, and one of McIlroy’s playing partners, Jordan Spieth, questioned where McIlroy was going to take his drop.

You, too, might flag or be flagged for taking a generous lateral-relief drop after hitting a ball in a penalty area. And while that might be the subject for a debate with the players in your group, one thing that is not up for discussion is what happens if you can’t find your ball but aren’t sure it actually went in the water.

There might be decent evidence that you hit a ball into a penalty area, which would entitle you to multiple relief options, including lateral relief or back-on-the-line relief. However, the evidence has to be overwhelming to proceed with those options. By overwhelming, there has to be at least 95 per cent certainty. In the Rules of Golf, the term is “known or virtually certain.”

Let’s role-play for a moment: You hit a rescue shot over a tree toward a green that is guarded by a pond. The shot appears to be coming up just short—and likely wet. However, no one in your group watched your shot, and you never saw or heard a splash. No one did. Upon reaching the pond, you see there are literally dozens of balls in the water, and there is no telling which one might be yours. The penalty area is marked with red stakes on your side, so you think you can take lateral relief by estimating the last spot your ball likely crossed over its border and dropping within two club lengths, no closer to the hole.

Adding a penalty stroke to your score, are you good to go with hitting a pitch shot onto the green?

The answer: Probably not.

Rule 17.1c covers this scenario. If it is not known or virtually certain the ball is in the pond—maybe it plugged on the bank or got deflected by the tree into high grass or fescue—then you cannot proceed with most of the relief options of Rule 17.1. In fact, you have to turn to Rule 18.2 and proceed with the ball being considered lost.

That means you return to the spot where you just played and hit another shot, adding a penalty stroke to your score. If you dropped by the water and played as if taking lateral relief, you would be penalised for playing from the wrong place (Rule 14.7). It’s a two-shot penalty in stroke play or loss of hole in match play.

Also, in stroke play, if it’s considered a “serious breach” and it wasn’t corrected by going back and playing from the right spot, you would be disqualified if you begin the next hole or return a scorecard after the final hole.

Under the Definitions section in the Rules of Golf, this is what is considered a serious breach: “When playing from a wrong place could give the player a significant advantage compared to the stroke to be made from the right place. … Factors to be taken into account include the difficulty of the stroke, the distance of the ball from the hole, the effect of obstacles on the line of play and conditions affecting the stroke.”

There is no concept of serious breaches in match play because you lose a hole the moment you play from the wrong place.

Back to the scenario of your ball maybe being in a penalty area, you’ll need to grab a ball retriever or go wading to identify it, and you’ve only got three minutes to get lucky.