Golf Penalty Areas: Red and Yellow Stakes Explained

What a penalty area is

Ponds, creeks, lakes, and often desert or thick brush the course wants to treat the same way. They’re marked with red or yellow stakes or lines; a penalty area with no marking counts as red. Your ball is in the penalty area if any part of it touches the area or its line.

Play it as it lies, no penalty

You can play the ball from a penalty area just as you would from the rough. Since 2019 you can ground your club, take practice swings that touch the ground or water, and move loose leaves and twigs.

Or take relief, one penalty stroke

First, find the spot where your ball last crossed the edge of the penalty area. Then:

Option	Yellow	Red
Stroke and distance: play again from where you last hit	Yes	Yes
Back on the line: keep the crossing point between the hole and you, go back as far as you like, and drop within one club-length of a point on that line	Yes	Yes
Lateral: drop within two club-lengths of the crossing point, not nearer the hole	No	Yes

The common mistake is using where the ball came to rest in the water. The back-on-the-line and lateral options are measured from where it crossed the edge.

Some courses also let you drop on the opposite side of a red penalty area, the same distance from the hole. That’s a local rule (Model Local Rule B-2), so check the scorecard or the posted local rules.

When you can’t find the ball

You can only use these options if it’s known or virtually certain that the ball is in the penalty area: you saw it splash, or there’s nowhere else it could be. If it might be in the long grass next to the pond, it’s a lost ball and you go back under stroke and distance.

That’s also why you can’t hit a provisional ball for a ball that’s surely in the water.

No other relief inside

Inside a penalty area you don’t get the free relief you’d get elsewhere: none for a cart path, ground under repair or an embedded ball, and you can’t declare the ball unplayable. It’s play it or take the one-stroke options above. The one exception is a dangerous animal, such as a snake or bees near the ball: you can take free relief from it, dropping inside the penalty area.