I Think My Ball Went Into A Penalty Area But I Can’t Find It. What Shall I do?

Imagine this scenario. You’ve hit a ball from the tee, it’s headed down the left side of the fairway before disappearing over the crest of a hill. You haven’t played the course before so you don’t know what’s over there, but you’re pretty sure it will be fine.

As you walk over the brow though you see the fairway runs out and down into a red penalty area… a pond! Short of the pond and the line demarcating the red penalty is some heavy rough and an area of reeds.

You can’t see your ball but you’re hoping it might have stopped short of the pond in the rough or reeds. You begin to search but it’s thick stuff and there’s no sign of it. You stand on a couple of balls, but neither are yours.

After nearly three minutes of searching without luck, you suggest to your playing partner that you’ve probably gone into the penalty area. They respond that you might well have done.

What should I do next?

This is where the golf Rules term “Known or Virtually Certain” comes into play. It is the standard for deciding what has happened to a player’s ball and it will determine what you should do next…

Known is a definite, nothing vague about it. If the player or another person saw for sure what happened to a ball it is known.

But virtually certain is tricky. It’s defined in the Rules as, being at least 95% likely that what is thought to have happened, has happened.

Right so in this scenario, do you know that your ball has gone into the penalty area? No – You would need to have seen it or have others witness it cross the line into the penalty area for it to be “known.”

OK then, are you virtually (95% or more) certain your ball has gone into the red penalty area?

If the fairway had sloped straight into the pond with short grass all the way, you would be able to say you were virtually certain it had ended in the water. There would have been nothing to stop it.

In that case, you would proceed under Rule 17 and take one of the relief options available from a red penalty area. Those are: stroke and distance relief from where the previous shot was played, back on the line relief keeping the point where you believe the ball crossed into the penalty area in a straight line with the hole, or two-club-length lateral relief from the spot you believe the ball crossed the line (no closer to the hole).

But in the scenario you’re facing, the run into the penalty area was not clear. Thick rough and reeds were blocking the way.

Can you be 95% sure that, because you haven’t found your ball, that it’s not buried in the grass short of the penalty area? Probably not.

If you were 95% sure the ball was in the penalty area, why would you have spent that time searching for it outside the penalty area.

In this instance, because you can’t be 95% sure the ball is in the penalty area, you must treat your ball as lost if you can’t find it after three minute. Your only option is to go back to where you played the previous shot and take stroke and distance relief.

The temptation would be to say, “yeah – it must be in the penalty area.” Your playing partner might even agree that it probably is.

But “virtually certain” requires a higher standard than just probably or possibly. If you can’t be 95% sure the ball is in the penalty area, you must treat it as lost.