2005 #7 Where should you drop?

The Scene:
You are on the tee on hole #3. You wind up and hit a huge drive. Your ball soars over the water headed for the fairway just short of the green. Can it make it? “Go!” you shout. But the ball drops short of its mark. It hits the bank just short of a red stake and bounces back into the water. You sigh and say, “At least I’ll get to drop over there.” But your fellow competitor disagrees. “You should drop right out here where your ball first crossed the water.”

What would you do?
You know your ball is in a lateral water hazard. You will take a one stroke penalty and drop a ball within two club lengths of a spot. But which spot?

A. Your ball made it to the other side of the hazard and bounced back in. Your spot is where it entered the water. After all, it is a lateral water hazard.
B. When your ball hit the bank it was short of the red stake. The spot where it landed was still in the hazard. So the last place it crossed the margin of the hazard was back near the tee where it first entered the hazard. That’s your spot. Drop within two club lengths of there.

B is correct.
You may drop within two club lengths of where your ball LAST crossed the margin of the hazard – that imaginary line represented by the red stakes.

If your ball had flown all the way across the hazard and landed BEYOND the red stakes and THEN bounced back into the water, that bounce would have taken it across the margin, back into the hazard again. The spot where it crossed the margin would be the last place it entered the hazard. That would be your spot.

But in this case your ball fell short. It didn’t clear the hazard. So you drop near the spot where your ball entered the hazard (back near the tee).

26-1 c. As additional options available only if the ball last crossed the margin of a lateral water hazard, drop a ball outside the water hazard within two club-lengths of and not nearer the hole than (i) the point where the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard

REMEMBER: If your ball is in a lateral water hazard just think about where it LAST entered the hazard. That’s your spot. Take one penalty stroke and drop within two club lengths of there, no nearer the hole.