Rules Review
Rules of Golf Review: Two balls just collided mid-air! What’s the ruling on that?
Jordan Schaefer Photography
Two balls colliding while both are in motion is highly unusual—unless you're at Topgolf—but it does happen. Perhaps the most common scenario would be when shots are hit around the green or from blind spots on the course where seeing the other golfer swing is impossible.
In fact, since the Rules of Golf began including the term "ready golf," giving tacit approval to playing out of order (it was updated in 2023), the chances of balls colliding has only increased. "Firing when ready" certainly speeds up the game, and there is no penalty for playing out of order in stroke play. Meanwhile, in match play, opponents also can agree to play out of order (Rule 5.6b).
So what happens when two players hit shots around the same moment and their balls crash into each other? Before we get into that, it's first important to differentiate between this scenario and one where one ball in motion hits another ball at rest. The later happens a fair amount of time on the pro tours. One memorable example was in 2018, at the WGC-HSBC Champions, when Justin Rose hit a shot that hit Xander Schauffele's ball and knocked both into the water.
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In that case, Schauffele got to replace his ball where it came to rest (he actually had to substitute it since the ball was unrecoverable). Rose, meanwhile, had to proceed with options for playing from a penalty area (then called a water hazard) as the Rules required him to play his next shot from where his ball had come to rest after the collision. In contrast, if a ball putted from the putting green hits another ball at rest on the green, the player who putted is assessed the general penalty (two strokes or loss of hole in match play).
OK, with that out of the way, when two balls in motion at the same time run into each other, how you proceed depends on where the balls were when the strokes were made.
- If two balls in motion putted from the putting green collide, the strokes should be replayed.
- If one of the balls was played from off the green and the other was on the green, the one hit from off the green should be played as it lies, while the one played from the putting green must be replayed from the previous spot.
- If both balls were played from anywhere outside the putting green, for instance the mid-air collision from the fairway, then the balls should be played as they lie.
All of this is covered in Rule 11.1.
Also, remember that if you have to replay from off the green, the ball should be dropped within one clublength (not nearer the hole) from the reference point where the last shot was estimated to have occurred. It has to be dropped in the same area where it came from (general area, penalty area or bunker). If you're replaying on the green, you place the ball, you don't drop it. See Rule 14.6.
