Lesson 1: Water hazards: Splash and What Comes Next
Every golfer, at every level, hits balls into water sometimes. Even the best professionals in the world do it. When it happens, there is a clear rule for what to do next.
When your ball goes into a penalty area (marked with red or yellow stakes), you cannot play it from the water. You take a penalty stroke and play again from one of several allowed positions.
With a red-staked penalty area, you can drop a ball within two club-lengths of where it entered the hazard, no closer to the hole — plus one penalty stroke.
With a yellow-staked area, you replay from where you last hit — plus one penalty stroke. Learning which stakes are which is one of the first things a golfer learns about a new course.
Rule: When your ball enters a penalty area, take a one-stroke penalty. With red stakes, drop within two club-lengths of the entry point. With yellow stakes, replay from your previous position.
Have you ever seen a professional golfer hit a ball into water on television? What did they do? How did they react? What can we learn from how the best players handle a bad moment?
Walk the course with your parent and identify every penalty area (red or yellow stakes). On a hand-drawn map of the course in your golf journal, mark each one and note whether it is red or yellow. For each one, practice pointing to where you would drop if your ball went in. Count how many penalty areas your facility has. Which hole has the most?