Your ball has rolled into the edge of a red penalty area, past the red stakes, but it has stopped just before tumbling into the water. You can play it.
You take your stance and rehearse the shot you are going to attempt. But, in so doing you brush the ground with your club as you make your practice swing.
Are you in trouble? Have you broken a Rule and will you be facing a penalty?
Up until the Rule changes of 2019, you would indeed have been facing a penalty.
Before then, you couldn’t touch the ground in a penalty area (then known as a water hazard), neither could you remove loose impediments, nor could you take a practice swing that touched the ground.
But in 2019, the Rules were relaxed. Now there is no penalty for touching the ground either with your hand or with a club in a penalty area.
There’s no penalty for removing loose impediments and there’s no penalty if you touch the ground in a penalty area when you make a practice swing.
What you can’t do though, is cause the ball to move.
If you made a practice swing that touched the ground and in so doing caused the ball to move off its original spot, you would have broken Rule 9.4b and would incur a penalty stroke.
Then, if that happened, you would have to return the ball to its original spot before making a stroke at it.
If you didn’t return it to its original spot, you would be in breach of Rule 14.7 – Playing from a wrong place. That would cost you the general penalty of two strokes in stroke play or loss of hole in match play.
Although you can touch the ground in a penalty area with your practice swing, it’s worth remembering that you can’t touch the ground with your club in a practice swing if your ball lies in a bunker.
If that happens, you receive the general penalty.
So, the answer to the question – My club just touched the ground in a penalty area during my practice swing. What is the ruling? Is – there is no penalty so long as you didn’t cause the ball to move.
