You’ve hit your ball into thick rough and it’s gone deep to the roots. You take out a wedge to have a dig around but you’re not hopeful of finding it.
Then, after two minutes 30 seconds, your club clips a ball as you’re swiping through the grass. It moves a few inches.
It turns out to be your ball… What do you do now? Are you going to face a penalty for moving your ball under The Rules?
In most circumstances on the golf course, if you cause a ball at rest to move by touching it with your golf club you win incur a penalty of one shot.
That’s covered by Rule 9.4 – Ball Lifted or Moved by Player.
If your ball lies anywhere on the golf course, except the putting green, and you cause it to move with your club, whether accidentally or deliberately, (perhaps as you are addressing it,) there is a penalty of one shot, and the ball must be replaced on its original spot.
If you’re on the putting green and you accidentally cause the ball to move with your club, there is no penalty and the ball must be replaced on its original spot.
What about in searching for a ball though? Well, that’s also covered by Rule 9.4 and it’s one of the exceptions to Rule 9.4b.
You will not incur a one stroke penalty if you accidentally cause the ball to move while trying to find or identify it. It doesn’t matter if you cause it to move with your club in this instance.
There is no penalty for causing the ball to move while looking for it. You must replace the ball in its original spot.
You must also restore the conditions of the original lie. So, if you had cleared the grass in locating your ball, you must attempt to re-bury the ball in the position it originally sat.
There’s no penalty then for accidentally moving your ball with your club while searching for it. There would be, however, if you did it deliberately.
If you found your ball and identified it, then moved it with your club to improve your lie, you would incur a one-stroke penalty and would need to replace it.
If you played it from the new spot, you would have played from a wrong place and would be in line for a general penalty (two strokes in stroke play and loss of hole in match play)…
Or, if you had gained a significant advantage by playing from the wrong place and then did not correct your mistake before teeing off at the next hole, you would be disqualified.
The answer to the question – I just moved my ball with my club while looking for it. Should I be penalised? Is – No. Not if you did so accidentally.
