Especially when course conditions are soft or you’re playing a day or two after some heavy rain, a ball can come to rest in its own pitch-mark, making it very difficult for a player to make a stroke at the ball. This was not the intent of the game of golf and therefore, the Rules allow free relief for a ball in such a situation.

When is a Ball Embedded?

The diagram below helps to show what the Rules of Golf mean by an embedded ball:

The key is that part of the ball needs to be below the level of the ground and the ball needs to be in its own pitch-mark, not some other pitch-mark. A ball that is nestled in thick rough or pine straw (third picture) is not embedded and is not entitled to free relief.

Free relief is allowed if the ball is embedded anywhere in the general area with two exceptions:

• If your ball is embedded in sand in a part of the general area that is not cut to fairway height or less you are not entitled to free relief and must play the ball as it lies or proceed under the Unplayable Ball Rule; or
• If interference by anything other than the ball being embedded makes the stroke clearly unreasonable (i.e. the ball is embedded at the base of a thick bush).

How to Take Relief for an Embedded Ball

The relief procedure for an embedded ball is different from the nearest point of complete relief Rules and does not use a nearest point of complete relief as the reference point. To take relief for an embedded ball:

• Lift the ball out of the pitch-mark (it is not necessary to mark it first),
• Drop the ball (or another ball) within one club-length of the nearest spot to right behind the pitch-mark (where the ball was embedded) in the general area, but not nearer the hole. The ball must be dropped also in the general area.
• After dropping the ball, do not repair the pitch-mark until after you have played your next stroke. Repairing the pitch-mark could lead to a two-stroke or loss of hole penalty for improving your conditions affecting the stroke.