If you have addressed the ball (defined as if you take your stand and ground your club), swing and missed the ball completely, the stroke still counts. However, there is no penalty stroke. The idea is that a missed swing is a type of mishit and should be counted.

Golfer A on a par-3 teed up the ball, takes one swing but missed. He takes a second swing and the ball landed on the green. Then, he one putts to sink it into the hole. The total score will be 3 on that hole.

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A trick to avoid counting the missed swing is never ground your club. If you never have club/ground contact, you have not addressed the ball. Professionals actually use this trick sometimes in the rough to avoid penalty stroke. For them, if they addressed the ball and the ball moves, a penalty stroke will kick-in.

If there are some man-made objects (such as cigarette butts) or living organisms (say, insects), sitting next to your ball, you can remove it. However, you cannot remove dead natural objects, such as tree branches, sand, stones, etc. unless you are on the green.

If the ball moves (your club touching the ball) before the back swing, this does not count as addressing the ball.

If you (1) hit it out-of-bound or (2) cannot find a ball within 5 minutes after it goes into forest, tall grasses, etc., drop a ball at the approximate location where it goes out of the left/right boundary of your hole (exit point). The drop zone should be (1) within two-clubs length of the exit point and (2) not nearer the hole.

Golfer A hits a ball out-of-bound and is lost, then he immediately put another ball down and hit it.

In addition to the above, there will be one stroke penalty. This rule does not apply to balls going into water. Water hazard has different dropping rules.

This is illegal under traditional golf rules (the one PGA uses). Traditional rules require that you hit from where you last hit the ball with one stroke penalty. In tournaments, golfers will need to hit what is known as provisional ball if a ball is likely disappeared. That is, if ball A may be out-of-bound then they immediately put ball B (provisional) down and hit it. They keep doing this until at least one ball can be found easily. If the first ball cannot be found within 5 minutes, the provisional ball will be the ball in play with one stroke penalty. However, due to time limitation, this rule is seldom followed in recreational play. Hence we have our own rule above.

A player can declare unplayable lie anytime if he feels that it is impossible to play the shot (it does not matter whether the ball is in the middle of the fairway or 30 yards into a forest). Usually, unplayable lie is declared after you have located the ball but it is deep inside the forest, under some trees, in long grasses, railroad tracks, etc.

You hit your ball into some long grasses surrounding a river, you declare unplayable lie after you’ve found your ball (if you cannot find it see the lost ball section). You can then drop a ball outside of the long grasses. If you hit it into the forest, you can take your ball completely out of the forest. However, don’t take it all the way back to the fairway. Rough is acceptable as a "point-of-relieve".

You will need to count one penalty stroke.

The procedure to take is: (1) Locate the nearest "point-of-relieve", (2) drop within a two-club length area around the "point-of-relieve" that is not nearer the hole.

An alternative is that you can re-hit from where you originally hit the ball. In all cases, one stroke penalty will be incurred.

For PGA: With traditional golf rules, the "point-of-relieve" is a point where, if the ball is located there, will allow for a full-swing to be completed with your feet and your golf ball NOT locating on cart path or man-made surfaces. If, say, tree branches are hitting your club while you swing then this is not a valid "point-of-relieve". This does NOT mean that you can take the ball out of the forest (this is the big catch). This is why you see pros hitting ball deep inside the forest as they cannot use this rules to take it out. And if they move the ball to a better location inside the forest they will have one stroke penalty. Pros only use this rule when they cannot swing at the ball.

For us, we should take it easy!! The "point-of-relieve" should be somewhere that gets you out of the trouble.

Drop a ball BEHIND the water hazard. The dropping point is along a line extended from the hole and the point where the ball last crossed the water boundary. Please note the word BEHIND. This is to address the situation where the ball cleared the water, hit a slope on the other side and roll back into the water. In this situation, although your ball cleared the water initially, you should still drop behind the water. Also, under this situation, you are NOT bounded to the two-clubs length rule. You can walk all the way back to the tees if you like.

You hit your ball into a river running parallel to the fairway. You drop another ball within two-clubs length from where the ball last crossed the water boundary, not nearer the hole.

Don’t forget the one stroke penalty count.

For PGA, we will need to find out if this is a normal or lateral water hazard. These two types of water hazard are defined by the colours of the stakes that marked their boundaries. Different rules apply to different types of water hazards.

If it is a river running parallel to the fairway, you may not be able to get behind it (this is the reason why PGA have two types of water hazard definition). As such, drop within two-clubs length from where the ball last crossed the water boundary, not nearer the hole. Please note that this time you are bounded to the two-clubs length rules.

** Unless your ball is lost, the SAME ball has to be used throughout the hole. I.e. You cannot use a different ball when hitting through a water hazard.

If your golf shoes OR your ball is located on a cart-path, sprinkler, some concrete roadway, ground under repair, etc. You are entitled to a free drop within two-clubs length of the nearest "point-of-relieve".

Of course, you can hit from there if you want.

Your ball falls onto a concrete cart path. You pick up the ball and put it down at two-clubs length from where your ball last located.

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In general, you are allowed to remove all natural and non-natural obstruction on your putting line. Say, if there are leafs, tree branches, rocks, insects, cigarette, etc on your putting line, you should be able to remove them without penalty.

Very often there are leafs blown onto the green in the fall. You can remove them before you putt.

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The exception is sand and water condensation. You cannot remove sand or brush away water from the putting line.

But if your ball is touching any of these objects, make sure you mark the ball first before removing the object.

The number one bunker rule violation by recreational players is that you are NOT supposed to ground your club in a bunker. That is, your club should never touch the sand surface until the downswing started. A lot of people don’t know that.

If your club touches the sand when you address the ball OR if your club touches the sand during the back swing, you should have a TWO-stroke penalty.

You hit your ball into a bunker. In the bunker you do a practice swing and your club touches the sand. You get a two-stroke penalty.

One or two strokes as defined above.

If you watch TV carefully you will see pros always hold their sand wedge above the sand. This is the reason behind it. In fact, I hear a case where a pro cannot get his ball out of the bunker in the first shot. In frustration, he hit his club into the sand while the ball is still in the bunker. Before he tries to hit his second shot, a rule official comes and assigns him a two-stroke penalty. So, a two becomes a four!!