Key takeaways
- Count a lost or out-of-bounds ball as stroke and distance: add one penalty stroke and replay from where you last played, so a tee shot out of bounds leaves you hitting three from the tee.
- Announce a provisional ball out loud, using the word provisional, before you hit it, or the second ball becomes your ball in play and the first is out of play even if you then find it.
- Hit a provisional whenever there is a realistic chance the first ball is lost or out of bounds, because an abandoned provisional costs time but no strokes.
- Do not play the provisional from nearer the hole than where you think the original lies until you have finished looking, or the original stops being your ball.
- Check whether the course has adopted Model Local Rule E-5 before relying on its two-stroke drop, since it is meant for casual rounds and golfers' own competitions, not professional or elite amateur events.
When your ball is out of bounds or lost, the Rules of Golf give one remedy: stroke and distance. You add one penalty stroke and play again from where you hit the previous shot (Rule 18.2b). Off the tee, that means your next shot from the tee is your third. A provisional ball, announced before you hit it, saves the walk back. Some courses also adopt a Local Rule that lets you drop near the fairway for two penalty strokes instead, but it is not meant for elite competition.
What follows reflects the 2023 Rules of Golf, still the edition in force on 2 October 2026, and the Model Local Rules as The R&A updated them for 2026.
Stroke and distance in one line
The definition is exact: you get one penalty stroke and you lose the benefit of any distance gained from the spot where you played the previous stroke. Both halves matter. The penalty stroke goes on the card; the lost distance is usually the more expensive part.
Two features are easy to miss. First, the option is always open: under Rule 18.1 you may take stroke-and-distance relief at any time, wherever your ball is, even when another Rule would send you somewhere specific. Second, it is final: once you put another ball in play this way, the original is out of play even if someone finds it a few seconds later.
How you replay depends on where the previous stroke came from (Rule 14.6). From the teeing area you may tee the ball anywhere within it. From the general area, a bunker or a penalty area you drop within one club-length of the previous spot, in the same area of the course and no nearer the hole.
Counting it out
| What happened | What you do | Your next stroke |
|---|---|---|
| Tee shot comes to rest out of bounds | Re-tee anywhere in the teeing area | Your 3rd |
| Tee shot not found in three minutes, no provisional played | Walk back and re-tee | Your 3rd |
| Tee shot lost, provisional played and found in the fairway | Continue with the provisional | Your 4th, from the provisional |
| Second shot, played from the fairway, comes to rest out of bounds | Drop within one club-length of where you played it | Your 4th |
| Tee shot lost, Model Local Rule E-5 in force | Drop in the E-5 relief area for two penalty strokes | Your 4th |
The provisional line confuses people, so count it out. The original tee shot was stroke one. When the provisional becomes your ball, stroke and distance adds a penalty stroke, which is two, and the provisional tee shot was stroke three. Your next swing is the fourth.
When a ball is out of bounds
A ball is out of bounds only when all of it is outside the boundary edge (Rule 18.2a(2)). If any part of it touches or sits above ground inside the edge, it is in bounds.
- Stakes or a fence: the edge is the line between the course-side points of the stakes or posts at ground level, and the stakes themselves are out of bounds.
- A painted line: the edge is the course-side edge of the line, and the line itself is out of bounds.
- Colour: boundary stakes and lines should be white.
Boundary objects are treated as immovable and give no free relief, which is the opposite of penalty-area stakes, which are obstructions. You may stand out of bounds to play a ball that is in bounds.
Boundaries can also run through the middle of a course. Model Local Rule A-4 lets a Committee make part of the course out of bounds while a particular hole is played, for instance to stop players cutting a dogleg down a neighbouring fairway. Since January 2026 there is a second version, A-4.2, under which that internal boundary applies only to strokes played from the teeing area. The R&A's guidance on that Local Rule adds a limit: a Local Rule saying a ball is out of bounds merely because it crossed a boundary and came back is not authorised, because a ball is only out of bounds when it comes to rest there.
When a ball is lost
A ball is lost if it is not found within three minutes of you or your caddie, or your partner or their caddie, starting to search. A few details decide close cases:
- You cannot declare a ball lost. Declaring it does not make it lost; only the clock does. You never have to search, though, because stroke-and-distance relief is available at any time.
- Identification time is extra. If a ball is found inside the three minutes but you are not sure it is yours, you get a reasonable time to identify it, even after the three minutes end.
- Interruptions pause the clock. If you stop searching for a good reason, such as standing aside while someone plays, that time does not count.
- Deliberate delay does not help. If you hang back so that others can search on your behalf, the clock starts when you could have reached the area.
There is also an exception for a ball you never find but whose fate is known or virtually certain. If it was moved by an outside influence, came to rest in an abnormal course condition or is in a penalty area, you may take relief under the Rule covering that situation instead of stroke and distance (Rule 18.2b).
The provisional ball, start to finish
A provisional ball exists to save time, and it works only if you follow the sequence.
- Check that it is allowed. You may play one if your ball might be lost outside a penalty area or might be out of bounds, including when it might be in a penalty area but might also be lost somewhere else (Rule 18.3a).
- Announce it before you swing. Tell someone you are playing a provisional, using that word or otherwise making it clearly a Rule 18.3 ball. "I'll hit another one" is not enough, and a ball played without the announcement becomes your ball in play under stroke and distance (Rule 18.3b).
- Wait your turn on the tee. From the teeing area, everyone else in the group plays first (Rule 6.4c). Elsewhere you play it straight after the shot that caused the doubt.
- Keep playing it, within limits. It stays provisional as long as you play it from a spot the same distance from the hole as where the original is estimated to be, or farther.
- Let the search decide. If the original is found on the course outside a penalty area within three minutes, you must abandon the provisional and play the original, and the provisional's strokes do not count. If the original is lost or out of bounds, the provisional becomes your ball under stroke and distance. If the original is found in, or known to be in, a penalty area, you abandon the provisional and play the original or take penalty-area relief.
Two consequences follow from step four. Playing the provisional from a spot nearer the hole than where you estimate the original to be makes it your ball in play, and the original becomes a wrong ball even if it turns up in the fairway. And if both balls end up in the same patch of rough and you cannot tell them apart, the Rules decide for you: if only one is found it is treated as the provisional, and if both are found you choose which one is the provisional.
You may ask others not to look for your original, but nobody has to comply, and if a ball that might be the original is found, you must make every reasonable effort to identify it.
The two-stroke alternative: Model Local Rule E-5
The stated purpose of E-5 is pace of play. When nobody has hit a provisional, a walk back to the tee holds up everyone behind. A Committee may therefore adopt E-5 for general play, and for the whole course or just one or two blind holes.
Under it, for two penalty strokes, you may drop anywhere between two lines from the hole: one through the point where your ball is estimated to have come to rest or crossed the boundary, and one through the nearest point of fairway that is not nearer the hole, with an extra two club-lengths outside each line. The ball must be dropped in the general area and not nearer the hole than the first point.
The limits are as important as the option:
- It is not for a ball known or virtually certain to be in a penalty area, and not for an unplayable ball.
- If you played a provisional, you cannot use E-5 for the original, though you can use it for a provisional you cannot find.
- The R&A's guidance says it is not appropriate for professional or elite amateur competitions, and whether scores using it count for handicap purposes depends on the handicapping guidance where you play.
Why two strokes? Count a lost tee shot both ways. Under stroke and distance you have played one, added one, and your third shot from the tee travels somewhere near where the first should have, so you are probably playing your fourth from there. Under E-5 you have played one, added two, and you play your fourth from beside the fairway. The R&A describes the relief as comparable to stroke and distance; what it removes is the walk and the uncertainty of the second tee shot, not the cost.
Why the stroke is still there
Golf has tried dropping half of the penalty more than once. The R&A and USGA's own history of the Rules records that the USGA's 1946 code used a distance-only penalty for a ball out of bounds, and that The R&A's experimental code four years later applied distance-only to balls lost, out of bounds or unplayable. The first unified code, from 1 January 1952, went back to stroke and distance. The USGA tried distance-only again for lost and out-of-bounds balls in its 1960 code, abolishing the provisional ball at the same time, and ended the experiment a year later. The modern answer to the time stroke and distance costs is the optional E-5 Local Rule, whose purpose statement is about pace of play, rather than a lighter penalty in the Rule itself.
When to hit a provisional
The arithmetic is lopsided. An abandoned provisional costs you a minute and nothing on the scorecard, because its strokes do not count. A missing one costs a walk back, a wait for the group behind and, if your ball is lost, exactly the same strokes you would have taken anyway. So whenever there is a realistic chance the ball is lost or out of bounds, announce it and hit it.
The mistakes that turn a provisional into a problem are almost all procedural: forgetting to say "provisional", playing it from nearer the hole before the search is over, and assuming a local two-stroke rule applies when the course has not adopted it.
The cost inside a tournament
A stroke-and-distance hole is the classic card-wrecker, which is why the opening rounds of a tournament with a cut reward keeping boundaries out of play; how a golf cut works explains that asymmetry, and golf course management basics covers choosing targets that make it unlikely. How golf scoring works shows how one hole's damage carries through a total.
The Golf Career Simulator Pro Tour app is built around that kind of pricing rather than around swing timing: you choose how to play each shot from the lie, the distance, the wind and the conditions, inside multi-round events with cuts, leaderboards, ties and playoffs. Its tours and golfers are fictional, and this explainer is about the real Rules rather than the game's shot model. More golf guides are on our golf hub, and the full catalogue is under sports career and GM games. If you play club golf, golf tournament formats covers the formats where a lost ball costs less than it does in stroke play.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
What is the penalty for hitting out of bounds?
How long can you look for a lost ball?
When can you play a provisional ball?
What is the two-stroke local rule for a lost ball?
Is a ball on the out-of-bounds line in or out?
Sources
- Rule 18: Stroke-and-Distance Relief, Ball Lost or Out of Bounds, Provisional Ball (opens in a new tab)The R&A — accessed
- Definitions (Rules of Golf): Lost; Out of Bounds; Provisional Ball; Stroke and Distance; Boundary Object (opens in a new tab)The R&A — accessed
- Committee Procedures, Section 8: Model Local Rules (A-4, E-5) (opens in a new tab)The R&A — accessed
- New and Updated Model Local Rules for 2026 (opens in a new tab)The R&A — accessed
- Rule 6: Playing a Hole (order of play for a provisional ball) (opens in a new tab)The R&A — accessed
- Rule 14: Procedures for Ball (Making Next Stroke from Where Previous Stroke Made) (opens in a new tab)The R&A — accessed
- A Brief History of Revisions to the Rules of Golf: 1744 to 2016 (opens in a new tab)The R&A and the USGA — accessed
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