Burns, ditches and gorse: the penalty area options British golfers rarely use

Stand by the burn on any Saturday medal and you will see the same scene again and again. A ball splashes, someone walks to the bank near where it went in, drops a couple of club-lengths from the water and hits a half shot they never wanted to hit. Nobody asks whether there was a better choice. There usually was.

The Rules give you up to four ways out of a penalty area, and most club golfers only ever use one. The other three are not loopholes. They are written into Rule 17 for exactly the moments when the obvious drop is the wrong one.

First, is your ball really in the penalty area?

A ball is in a penalty area when any part of it touches the ground or anything else inside the edge, or sits above it, so a ball resting on the line is in.

What matters more is this: to take penalty area relief without finding your ball, it must be known or virtually certain that the ball is in the penalty area. Seeing a splash counts. Thinking it probably trickled into the ditch behind the long grass does not. Without that certainty the ball is lost, which means stroke and distance, so play a provisional when in doubt.

Red stakes or lines give you every option, yellow ones all except lateral relief. A penalty area that has not been marked is treated as red. The stakes are movable obstructions: if one is in your way, pull it out and put it back after the shot.

Option one: play it as it lies, for free

Golfers who learned the game before 2019 still forget this one. A ball in a penalty area is now played under the same Rules as a ball in the general area. You can ground your club, take practice swings that brush the grass or the water, and move loose impediments such as leaves, twigs and stones, all without penalty.

That changes the sums on a lot of old “hazard” lies. A ball sitting up on dry grass inside the red stakes, on the bed of a ditch that has not held water since spring, or in shallow water with the top half showing, can often be played back to the fairway for nothing. A clean chip out costs one stroke; a drop costs one stroke plus the next shot.

The test takes five seconds: solid contact, and a clear way out to somewhere better than a drop? Then play it. Under water, against a stone or buried in reeds, it is a gamble with a sore wrist attached.

Option two: stroke and distance, the one that feels like surrender

For one penalty stroke, you can always play again from where you hit your last shot. Golfers treat this as the worst choice because it gives up distance. On some holes it is the best one.

Take a par 3 over water. Your tee shot comes up short and splashes. The crossing point is in front of the tee, so back on the line puts you behind the tee or on a sloping bank, and lateral relief leaves you on the edge facing the full carry anyway. Going back to the teeing area gives you the same shot, and you may tee the ball up again. Playing three from a perfect lie usually beats playing three from a muddy bank.

Option three: back on the line, as far as you like

This is the most underused option on the course. Find the point where your ball last crossed the edge. Picture a line from the hole straight back through that point. You may drop anywhere on that line, with no limit on how far back you go.

Since 2023 you drop the ball on the line itself. Where it first touches the ground becomes the centre of a relief area one club-length in any direction, and the ball must come to rest inside it, not nearer the hole than the point where the original ball crossed the edge.

“As far as you like” is where shots are saved. Say your ball crossed into a burn 45 yards short of the green. A drop at the bank leaves a 45 yard pitch over water, the shot most amateurs dread. Walk back another 50 yards along the line and you have a full wedge from 95. Pick your favourite full distance, walk back to it and drop. It costs the same single stroke.

Option four: lateral relief, measured from the right place

For red penalty areas only, you may drop within two club-lengths of the point where the ball last crossed the edge, no nearer the hole and outside the penalty area. Most golfers use this option. Many use it from the wrong spot.

The reference point is where the ball crossed the edge, not where it came to rest. On a ball that curves into a ditch down the right of a fairway, the crossing point can be 30 or 40 yards behind where it finished.

It also works in your favour more often than people realise. Your approach carries a stream in front of the green, pitches on the far bank and spins back into the water. The ball last crossed the edge on the green side. If the stream is red, you drop on the green side and chip on.

Opposite side relief, dropping across the water at the same distance from the hole, exists only when the committee adopts a Local Rule for it. Check the scorecard before you rely on it.

Dropping zones, no play zones and one rare extra option

A dropping zone is an extra choice, not an obligation, unless the Local Rule says it is the only relief. If it leaves a worse shot than stroke and distance, you may usually take stroke and distance instead. A no play zone inside a penalty area, often a protected wetland, is different: you must take relief even if the ball looks playable.

If you play from a penalty area and your ball ends up in the same penalty area, out of bounds or lost, Rule 17.2 adds an extra option: for one more penalty stroke, go back to where you last played from outside the penalty area.

What you cannot do in a penalty area is declare your ball unplayable, or take free relief from ground under repair, temporary water or an embedded ball. The single exception is a dangerous animal condition, such as stinging bees: free relief inside the penalty area, or relief with the usual penalty outside it.

Where British golfers meet penalty areas: burns, ditches and gorse

On a Scottish links the water has a name, and it is usually a burn. On the Old Course at St Andrews the 1st, a 375 yard par 4, is simply called Burn, after the Swilcan Burn you must negotiate to reach the green. At Carnoustie the Barry Burn is in play off the 18th tee on both sides, then crosses right in front of the green. A stream across the front of a green is exactly where The R&A’s course marking guidance suggests yellow rather than red, because carrying it is part of the challenge. On a yellow burn there is no lateral relief, so the real choice is back on the line or stroke and distance.

The Barry Burn also gave golf its most famous warning about option one. At the 1999 Open, Jean van de Velde reached Carnoustie’s 72nd hole needing a six to win. His third shot found the burn, and he took off his shoes and socks and waded in before settling for a penalty drop. He made seven and lost the three-man play-off to Paul Lawrie. The Rules were different then, but the lesson stands: a ball you can see in the water is not a ball you can play.

On English parkland the penalty area is more often a ditch than a lake. Under the Rules a ditch or drainage ditch is a penalty area even when it holds no water, and if it is unmarked it is treated as red, so in a dry summer option one deserves a proper look. A committee may also play a normally dry ditch as general area, so the local rules decide.

Gorse, or whins in Scotland, is where golfers most often get it wrong. Gorse is not water, so it is not a penalty area unless the committee marks it as one. With no red or yellow stakes, a ball found in a gorse bush is in the general area and you can declare it unplayable: for one stroke, stroke and distance, back on the line, or two club-lengths from where the ball lies rather than from where it went in. Not found within three minutes, it is lost, which is why a provisional off the tee on a gorse lined hole is money in the bank. Where a club marks gorse red, the picture flips: no unplayable ball, but penalty area relief if it is known or virtually certain the ball went in.

Clubs also protect ponds, reed beds and wildlife areas as no play zones. The R&A’s marking guidance for one inside a penalty area is red or yellow stakes with green tops. When you see green on the stakes, take relief and do not go in, even to look.

Take this to your next round

Before you tee off, read the local rules on the scorecard or the sheet by the first tee: which ditches are general area, whether the gorse is marked, where the dropping zones are, whether opposite side relief applies. When a ball gets wet, find the crossing point and ask what each option leaves you. Most days the answer will still be the ordinary drop. On the two or three holes a month where it is not, you will be walking back 50 yards to a full wedge while your playing partners splash about on the bank.

For the other rules that catch out club golfers, read seven rules of golf almost everyone gets wrong. To keep the ball dry in the first place, see the shots you can save without changing your swing and how to read a course map in Britain. Panxis Golf has no commercial relationship with any club or organisation mentioned here.