Embedded Ball Rule in Golf: Free Relief for a Plugged Ball

When a ball is embedded

Your ball is embedded when it’s sitting in its own pitch-mark, made by the shot you just hit, and part of the ball is below the level of the ground. A ball just sitting down deep in the grass isn’t embedded unless part of it is below ground level.

You can lift the ball to check. Mark its spot first, and don’t clean it; if it’s embedded, you’ll be taking relief and can clean it then.

Where you get relief

Anywhere in the general area: the fairway and the rough. Before 2019 the rule only covered closely mown areas by default; now the rough counts too.

You don’t get it:

• in a bunker,
• in a penalty area,
• in sand in a part of the general area that isn’t cut to fairway height (a waste area, say), or
• when the shot would be clearly unreasonable anyway, like a ball plugged under a bush you couldn’t swing at.

Some courses limit relief to areas cut to fairway height or less, by local rule. Check the scorecard or the posted local rules.

How to take it

1. The reference point is the spot right behind where the ball is embedded.
2. Measure one club-length from it, no nearer the hole, in the general area.
3. Drop from knee height into that area. See taking a drop.

It’s free: no penalty stroke.

On the putting green

A plugged ball on the green doesn’t need this rule: you can mark it, lift it, repair the pitch-mark and replace the ball.