Looking For Your Ball

There are specific guidelines to follow when you lose your ball. If you're aware of the rules, you can avoid picking up needless penalties.

Even the best golfers have to search for a ball sometimes. You are allowed five minutes to look for your ball. The five minutes start when the search for the ball begins - not when you hit it. That means when your side -you, your partner and your caddie -start the search, not when any spectators or opponents begin to look.

Many golfers are vague about time. It's up to you to police yourself - if you haven't timed the start of your search, you should accept the view of anyone who suggests that your time is up.

Most golfers don't use the full time limit to search for a ball in friendly matches. If the competition is important enough for you to spend time searching, make sure you call other matches through when you see them waiting.

Natural obstructions          
When looking for your ball anywhere on the course, you may touch or bend long grass, heather, bushes or other natural vegetation, but only enough to find your ball and identify it as yours. You must not improve the lie of your ball, the area of your swing or your line of play.

If you cannot be sure the ball is yours, you may lift it to identify it, provided that you replace it in exactly the same lie. According to the rules, you're not necessarily entitled to see your ball when playing a shot.

If you or any member of your side moves your ball other than to find or identify it, it costs you a penalty shot. But if the ball is moved by a member of the other side, or a fellow competitor or his caddie in strokeplay, there is no penalty. You replace the ball and play on. This applies only to searching for a ball. Touching or moving an opponent's ball leads to a 1-stroke penalty at other times.

There is no penalty for playing a wrong ball in a hazard, so you don't have to be certain that a ball is yours before you play a shot.

If your ball is covered by loose impediments or sand in a hazard, you are allowed to remove enough of this material to help you see a part of your ball. If you remove more than necessary, you must replace the material until only a part of it is visible. If you move the ball in probing or raking like this, there is no penalty, provided that you replace the ball in the same position.

In a water hazard, the rules say that there must be 'reasonable evidence' that your ball has lodged in the hazard before you can presume that it has been lost there. For instance, if the hazard is surrounded by fairway and you can't see your ball on the grass, it is reasonable to assume that it has gone into the water.