How “Taking Your Medicine” Will Pay Off

By: Marcela Smith - Sep 09, 2021

We all know the object of golf is to finish each hole in the least amount of strokes, but there are times when choosing to take a penalty stroke may actually save you from a worse score. Here’s how!

The term “stroke-and-distance” means going back to the location of your last shot, and taking a drop for a one-stroke penalty. The most common reason players use stroke-and-distance is when a ball is lost or out-of-bounds. But did you know that the stroke-and-distance option is available at any time, anywhere on the course?

Here are a few situations you can use the stroke-and-distance option under Rule 18.1 and limit the “damage” to just one more stroke:

If you can barely see your ball nestled down in foot-long rough, being able to re-tee your ball from the teeing area is a great alternative to whacking away in impossibly thick rough (and you save time by not having to drive up to retrieve the original ball)

When your ball is lodged in the lip of a bunker or is on a side-hill lie at the back of a bunker, and your previous shot was from a distance that you usually hit consistently

When your ball is up against a tall tree with bushes all around it, making both the lateral relief option and the back-on-the-line option undesirable

When your last shot landed in a spot that is in front of a lake or bunker in a side-hill lie and you have little confidence you can hit the ball over the trouble

Choosing to use stroke-and-distance can be the smartest option in many challenging scenarios. Using your knowledge of the rules can help you avoid having that frustrating blow-up hole we all hate, and keep your score under control.