My ball rolled back into the water from yellow stakes – can I drop on the green side?

You’ve hit it over a pond, watched it land safety, only to see it trickle back into the water. Where do you drop?

Who doesn’t love a ‘signature hole’? Well, maybe not this one. It’s a mid-length par 3 with a pond in front of a green that slopes sharply from back to front.

In summer, when the putting surface is slick, a shot that lands safely can zip off the front and into a pond.

The penalty area is yellow and now we’re scratching our heads. Where can we take relief?

That’s the nub of this email: “Your drive goes over a yellow staked penalty area and rolls back into the water from the greenside. Is there any circumstance where you are allowed to take a drop on the green side?”

Yellow stakes in golf: Can we drop green side?

When yellow paint or stakes are in place in this case, a ball that lands on the green side of the penalty area and then rolls back into it can’t be dropped on that side.

There are some holes where the challenge is successfully getting the ball over the water and making sure it stays there. The threat is why the penalty area is yellow.

That’s because you’ve only got two relief options: stroke-and-distance and back-on-the-line relief. To drop green side here, you’d need to take lateral relief and that’s only an option when the penalty area is red.

Now, you might see a situation like in the picture above and have a lightbulb moment. ‘I’ll just drop it – back-on-the-line – in that little area of dry land inside the yellow stakes’.

Put the thought out of your minds. When you’re establishing a relief area to take penalty area relief, the location can be in any area of the course – “except the same penalty area“.

You might think all of this is rather unfair. You’ve initially cleared the penalty area and been beset by bad luck. Or maybe you just didn’t hit a good enough shot else it wouldn’t have rolled back in.

Got a question for our expert?

Despite the changes to the Rules of Golf in 2019 and 2023, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. I’ll try to help by featuring the best of your queries in this column.

What do you think of these yellow stakes in golf rules? Let me you what you think, and send me your own rules questions, by emailing me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or by leaving us a comment below, or on X.

• NOW READ: I played my ball from a penalty area but it didn’t come out – help!

• NOW READ: The Rules of Golf you HAVE to know in a penalty area

Pictures taken at Sandburn Hall