What’s the rule when your golf ball not only takes a dip in the pool but actually swims a full lap? I was playing a friendly game of golf yesterday, when my ball did just that.

The course is a family run 9 hole par 3 on a property that had once been a small apple orchard. Beautifully kept, the grounds are crisscrossed with small streams and there are several ponds that come into play. On the fifth hole I hit my drive just pin high, but into the babbling brook that runs along the right side of the fairway. From my vantage point on the elevated tee box I watched as my bright white ball was carried downstream back towards the tee box and away from the green. Yikes!

Here’s the question: So how should I have played the next shot?

The course has no stakes to mark water hazards, lateral or otherwise. So I wonder if the rule about bringing the ball back from the point where it crossed into the hazard applies? If I played it that way I would take my next shot from a point about ten feet off the green. But my ball lay two inches under water in the middle of a running brook, fifty yards downstream. Was the water a hazard if there were no stakes to mark it as a hazard? Can common sense prevail on a golf course? Or do I play the ball as it lies?

I pulled the ball out of the stream, stepped back on to the fairway to the first spot that was not soggy underfoot, dropped the ball and hit my next shot, taking a one stroke penalty.

Was I right? Did I cheat myself out out a better ball position by following the ball downstream? How would you have played the shot? Leave your comment in the space below.