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Penalty Areas in Golf: Red vs Yellow

3 October 2026 · 5 min read

A penalty area is a part of the course, usually water, where you can take relief for one penalty stroke if your ball ends up in it. It's marked with red or yellow stakes or lines, and the colour decides which relief options you get.

If you learned golf a while ago, you'll know these as water hazards (yellow) and lateral water hazards (red). The Rules changed the name to "penalty area" in 2019, and the current 2023 Rules of Golf keep it.

What counts as a penalty area?

Penalty areas aren't only ponds and streams. The committee can also mark areas such as a ravine, jungle, desert or lava rock. Some practical points:

• The edge is defined by the stakes or painted line. The stakes and line are inside the penalty area.
• A ball is in the penalty area when any part of it touches the area, including the edge.
• A water area that the committee hasn't marked at all is treated as a red penalty area.
• To take relief without finding your ball, it must be known or virtually certain that it's in the penalty area. If it might just be lost in long grass nearby, you have to treat it as a lost ball instead.

Option 1: play it as it lies

You never have to take relief. If you can reach the ball and hit it, you can play it from inside the penalty area with no penalty. Since 2019 you're allowed to ground your club, take practice swings that touch the ground, and move loose impediments like leaves.

Be honest with yourself, though: a splash that goes nowhere still costs a stroke.

Relief options for a yellow penalty area

For one penalty stroke, a yellow penalty area gives you two choices:

1. Stroke and distance: play again from where you hit your last shot.
2. Back-on-the-line relief: find the point where your ball last crossed the edge of the penalty area. Picture a straight line from the hole through that point, then go back along the line as far as you like and drop on it. Under the 2023 Rules, the ball must be dropped on the line, and it can come to rest within one club-length of where it lands, as long as that's no nearer the hole.

Relief options for a red penalty area

A red penalty area gives you both yellow options, plus one more:

1. Lateral relief: drop within two club-lengths of the point where your ball last crossed the edge, no nearer the hole.

Red areas often run alongside a hole, where going back on the line would be impossible, so lateral relief lets you drop beside the water instead.

Red vs yellow at a glance

The reference point for both colours is where the ball last crossed the edge, not where it splashed down.

How to drop correctly

• Drop from knee height, letting the ball fall straight down without spin.
• The ball must land in and come to rest in the relief area.
• If it rolls out, drop again. If it rolls out a second time, place it where it first touched the ground on the second drop.

Common mistakes

• Dropping where it splashed. Use the crossing point.
• Taking lateral relief from a yellow area. It's not allowed unless a local rule says so.
• Assuming the ball is in the water. Without being virtually certain, a missing ball is lost, which means stroke and distance.
• Forgetting the penalty. See golf penalty strokes explained.

Try it in Mashy

Mashy is full of water: Mashy Park has its ponds, Dogleg Downs has five doglegs bending round copses and ponds, and Puffin Point asks you to carry inlets and a chasm. It's a good place to practise the real-world decision: lay up short of the water, or check the wind indicator and pick a club that carries it with room to spare. For more on that kind of thinking, try golf course management for beginners and how wind affects a golf ball.