Searching for Your Golf Ball: What You Can Move, Identifying It and Accidental Moves (Rule 7)
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How we wrote this: A plain-English summary of Rule 7 of the official Rules of Golf as published by the R&A, checked October 29, 2026. The three-minute search limit is in Rule 18 (see our lost ball guide).
Late-autumn leaves make balls hard to find. Rule 7 says what you may do while you look.
A fair search
The R&A says you're responsible for finding your ball after each stroke. Rule 7.1a lets you take reasonable actions to find and identify it, such as:
- moving sand and water,
- moving or bending grass, bushes and tree branches, and even breaking them if that results from other reasonable search actions,
- removing loose impediments like leaves (Rule 15.1) and movable obstructions (Rule 15.2). See loose impediments.
If a fair search happens to improve your lie or swing area, there's no penalty. If you go beyond what's reasonable and improve conditions, you get the general penalty (two strokes in stroke play, loss of hole in match play).
In a bunker: if you move sand covering your ball while searching, you must re-create the original lie. You may leave a small part of the ball visible (Rule 7.1b).
Three ways to identify your ball
Rule 7.2 accepts any of these:
- Someone saw it come to rest where it's known to be yours.
- Your identifying mark is on it, unless an identical ball with the same mark is in the same area.
- Same brand, model, number and condition in the area where yours should be, unless an identical ball is there too and you can't tell which is yours.
Mark your ball before the round. It's the simplest insurance.
Lifting to identify
Under Rule 7.3, if a ball might be yours but you can't tell as it lies, you may lift it (or rotate it) to check, but:
- mark the spot first,
- don't clean it more than needed to identify it (except on the putting green),
- replace it on its original spot.
Lifting when it isn't reasonably necessary, not marking, or cleaning when not allowed costs one penalty stroke.
Moving it by accident
Rule 7.4: no penalty if anyone accidentally moves your ball while trying to find or identify it. That includes reasonable actions like sweeping your feet through long grass or shaking a tree. Replace it on its original spot (estimate if needed). If it was under sand, re-create the lie. Moving it before you start searching is a one-stroke penalty under Rule 9.4b (see ball moved at rest).