Imagine the scenario: You’re facing a testing shot to a tricky green with your ball sitting nicely in the fairway.
Standing right beside your ball, you want to check the distance one more time. You reach into your pocket for your yardage book and remove it.
In so doing, you dislodge your golf glove which was also in your pocket. It falls towards the ground.
You desperately try to catch it but are just too late, the glove falls onto your ball and causes the ball to move slightly off its spot.
Oh dear. What do you do next? What do The Rules say? Are you penalised?
Unfortunately, if you cause your ball to move you will normally receive one penalty stroke under Rule 9.4b.
That would be the case in this scenario.
Although it was totally accidental, you have caused your ball to move on the fairway. It would be the same penalty if you accidentally nudged the ball with your foot or with your club when you addressed it.
What you must do next is important. As you have caused your ball to move, you must replace it before you make your next stroke.
If you don’t replace it and make a stroke at the ball in its new position, your one-stroke penalty will be upgraded to a general penalty of two strokes in stroke play or loss of hole in match play. That is because you have now played a ball from a wrong place, in breach of Rule 14.7a. And that penalty becomes applicable.
Under an exception to Rule 1.3c. There are not multiple penalties, only the general penalty applies.
Things would have been different if your ball had been on the putting surface, as in the picture above. If you accidentally cause the ball to move on a putting surface, there is no penalty. That’s Rule 13.1d(1).
So, if your glove fell onto your ball on the green and caused it to move off its spot, there would be no penalty, and you should replace the ball on its original spot.
But, you still need to be careful - If you don’t replace it on its original spot on the putting green and make a stroke at it, you would incur the general penalty for breaking Rule 14.7a.
If your glove drops on your ball and causes it to move anywhere on the course other than the putting green, it’s a one-stroke penalty and you must then replace the ball on its original spot.
If your glove drops on your ball and causes it to move on the putting surface then, there is no penalty but you must still replace the ball on its original spot.
