My ball moved when I was searching for it. Now what?

Anyone who has played golf has had their fair share of ball searches. Most know that we have three minutes in which to find our ball, otherwise it is lost and we must go and play our provisional ball (if we have hit one), or return to where we made the previous stroke and put another ball into play.

If you are playing other forms of strokeplay, e.g. Stableford, par or maximum score, you can also elect to not complete play of the hole, in which case you will score zero points, lose the hole or score the maximum score, respectively.

Some clubs have adopted the Model Local Rule E-5, which is an alternative to the stroke-and-distance penalty for a lost ball or a ball out-of-bounds. This local rule allows a committee to provide an extra relief option that lets a golfer play on without returning to the location of the previous stroke.

Previously, you had to be careful when searching for your ball, because if you caused it to move, you incurred a penalty. In a very welcome and reasonable change to the Rules of Golf recently, there is no penalty when the player accidentally causes the ball to move while trying to find or identify it. There is a caveat, though. The rules do allow a player to “fairly search for the ball by taking reasonable actions” to find and identify it. This means you are free to move grass, sweep your foot through the grass, shake a tree or bush, move or bend bushes.

In even better news, if your reasonable actions as part of a fair search helps with your next stroke, you are free from penalty. For example, if in your search, you were stepping on and flattening thick grass, found your ball and that flattened grass improved your area of intended swing, there is no penalty as it was the result of a fair search.

However, if your actions to search for your ball are considered unreasonable, then you do face the possibility of being penalised for improving the area around your ball and therefore assisting your next stroke. For example, unnecessarily breaking a branch, as you could have walked around it, in the area where the ball is thought to lie.

If you have conducted a reasonable and fair search and you or anyone else causes your ball to move, there is no penalty, but the ball must be replaced on its original spot. There will be times when the original spot is not known, in which case the spot must be estimated, using reasonable judgement.

Finally, if you have found a ball but you do not know whether it is yours or not, you are permitted to lift that ball to identify it. However, as the ball must be returned to exactly the same spot, you must mark the spot first using a ball marker, which includes using a tee stuck in the ground.

Even if you are only rotating your ball on the spot to identify it, you must still mark its spot before doing so. You are also not allowed to clean the ball, other than enough needed to identify it.

Once your ball is identified, you must replace it on the original spot. If you fail to mark the spot before lifting (or rotating) it, or clean it more than you need to, you will incur one penalty stroke.  

Stuart McPhee is a referee for the PGA Tour of Australasia and co-host of the No.1 podcast in the world dedicated solely to discussing the Rules of Golf: The Golf Rules Questions Podcast.

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