Know the Rules: Water Hazards (Yellow Stakes)

When you hit a ball into a water hazard, the procedures can be complicated. It all depends on which kind of water hazard you hit into. They can be marked with either yellow stakes or red stakes, and the procedure for each is different. This week we will talk about hazards marked by yellow stakes. Water hazards marked by red stakes are lateral water hazards, which we will discuss next week. This is all in Rule 26.

The first thing to do is to determine whether or not your ball is in the hazard. If you cannot find your ball, the rules say it is a question of fact that it is in the water hazard. For example, you saw it go into the pond and splash, or you saw it roll toward the pond and disappear in weeds lining the pond. In the absence of such knowledge or virtual certainty that the ball is in the water hazard, you must call it a lost ball and proceed accordingly.

It is possible that your ball can be in the hazard, but not in any water. The boundary of a water hazard is defined by yellow stakes, and is the straight line connecting the nearest outside faces of adjoining yellow stakes. If your ball is inside this line, or even resting on it, your ball is in the hazard. The stakes themselves are inside the hazard, and are obstructions.

If you find your ball, you may play it without penalty. You may not ground your club in the hazard at any time before the stroke is made, and you may not remove any loose impediments in the hazard. If you do not find the ball, or you do but choose not to play it, you have two options (Rule 26-1). Both are accompanied by a one-stroke penalty.

You may go back to where the ball was originally played, drop another ball and play from there, or,

You may drop a ball behind the water hazard on a line connecting the hole and the spot where the ball crossed the boundary line of the hazard. You may go as far back as you like along this line to take your drop. [I once hit my tee shot into a pond and took my drop about twenty yards back, where there was much a much better lie available. I hit my 5-iron to less than a foot from the hole and tapped in for par.]

In both cases, you may clean your ball or substitute another one.

If the ball is moving in a water hazard, you may make a stroke at it, but you must do so without delay. You cannot wait until a moving ball comes to a more favorable position for the stroke. You may lift the ball while it is moving in the water in order to exercise one of the two options above.

Deep Rules:
(a) You are in a bunker and hit the ball over the green into a water hazard on the other side of the green, and the ball is not playable from there. You may either (1) go around to the tee side of the water hazard and play over the hazard after dropping a ball on the extended line between the hole and the spot where the ball crossed into the hazard, or (2) drop a ball in the bunker from where the original stroke was played. There's a one-stroke penalty in each case.

(b) There was reason to believe your ball went into the hazard, but you couldn't find it and played another ball under Rule 26-1. Then later find your original ball and it was not in the hazard. Unfortunately, when you made a stroke on the new ball, that became the ball in play, and the original ball became a lost ball.

(c) If a ball is lost near a water hazard, but there is no reasonable evidence that it is in the hazard, it must be treated as a lost ball if not found, not as a ball lost in a water hazard. That's to prevent someone from avoiding the lost ball penalties, which are more severe than the water hazard penalties.


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