2008 #3 Why Can’t You Drop on the Green Side of the Water Hazard?

The Scene:
You are playing hole #7 on the Charger. Your tee shot soars over the water (whew!) and lands on the green. But then it starts rolling back towards you. It rolls into the grass. You arrive on the green and discover that your ball is in the water hazard. It didn’t fall down to the sand or water; it is not in the rocks; but it is within the margin of the hazard. And you can’t play it because there is a rock behind it. You know you have to take a penalty stroke and then…

What would you do?
A. Drop a ball within 2 club lengths of where the ball last entered the hazard, no closer to the hole?
B. Go all the way back to the tee and hit another ball from there?

B is correct.
The water hazard on hole #7 is a regular water hazard, (marked by yellow stakes). It is not a lateral water hazard (marked by red stakes). (A), above, is an option for a lateral water hazard such as the one on hole #2. It is not an option for a regular water hazard.

Open your Rules of Golf book to Rule #26 WATER HAZARDS. Look under 26-1 in sections a and b. You will see:

Rule 26-1 Ball in Water Hazard
If a ball is in or is lost in a water hazard (whether the ball lies in water or not), the player may under penalty of one stroke:
Play a ball as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played or
Drop a ball behind the water hazard, keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind the water hazard the ball may be dropped.

Basically what this says is that you have two options but both require you to hit from behind the hazard. You can hit from where you hit before as in (B) above or you can draw an imaginary staight line. Start at the flagstick, draw it straight through the spot where your ball LAST entered the hazard (on the green side of the hazard) then straight back across the water for as far as you want to go. Then you can drop the ball anywhere on that line BEHIND THE HAZARD.

REMEMBER: Even if your tee shot hits the green first, if your ball finally comes to rest in a water hazard (yellow stakes) you have to play your next shot from behind the hazard.