Stroke and distance is a relief procedure in golf where you add one penalty stroke to your score and replay your shot from the spot where you last played. The name captures exactly what it costs you: one penalty stroke plus the lost distance of your previous shot. It applies any time your ball is lost or goes out of bounds, and you can also choose to use it voluntarily at any point during a hole.
How the Penalty Works
Under Rule 18 of the Rules of Golf, stroke-and-distance relief means adding one penalty stroke and playing the original ball or a substitute ball from where you made your previous stroke. The math trips up a lot of golfers, so here’s how it actually plays out.
Say you hit your tee shot out of bounds. That original swing counts as stroke one. You then add one penalty stroke (stroke two). You tee up again and hit, which is stroke three. So even though you’ve only physically swung the club twice, you’re hitting three off the tee. If your second tee shot lands in the fairway and you hit your next shot onto the green, that approach is stroke four. The penalty stroke is invisible on the course but very real on the scorecard.
When Stroke and Distance Is Required
Two situations make stroke and distance mandatory rather than optional:
- Ball out of bounds: When your ball crosses the white stakes or boundary lines marking the edge of the course, you must go back and replay from the previous spot under penalty of stroke and distance. There’s no option to drop near where it went out.
- Ball lost: If you can’t find your ball within the three-minute search time allowed under the rules, it’s officially lost. The only default relief option is stroke and distance, meaning you return to where you last played and try again.
This applies regardless of how the ball ended up lost or out of bounds. Even if flowing water carries your ball across a boundary line, you’re still required to take stroke-and-distance relief.
When You Can Choose It Voluntarily
You don’t have to wait for a lost ball or an out-of-bounds situation. At any time during a hole, you can decide to take stroke-and-distance relief. Maybe you hit into a terrible lie and would rather replay the shot than hack at it from deep rough. Maybe your ball landed in a spot where your only realistic play is sideways. You always have the option to add one penalty stroke and go back to where you played from, no questions asked.
The Provisional Ball: Saving Time
The biggest practical problem with stroke and distance is pace of play. If you hit a drive that might be lost or out of bounds, walking 250 yards forward to search, failing to find it, then walking 250 yards back to the tee wastes several minutes and holds up every group behind you.
That’s why provisional balls exist under Rule 18.3. If you think your ball might be lost outside a penalty area or might have gone out of bounds, you can announce that you’re playing a provisional ball and hit another shot from the same spot before going forward to search. You must use the word “provisional” or make it clear that’s what you’re doing.
If your original ball turns out to be lost or out of bounds, your provisional ball automatically becomes the ball in play, with the stroke-and-distance penalty already baked in. If you find your original ball in bounds, you pick up the provisional and continue with the original, no penalty. It’s essentially a time-saving mechanism that doesn’t change the penalty itself.
The Local Rule Alternative (Model Local Rule E-5)
Recognizing that stroke and distance can grind casual rounds to a halt, the USGA and R&A introduced an optional local rule that courses can adopt. Known as Model Local Rule E-5, it gives you a way to keep moving forward instead of returning to the previous spot, but at a steeper cost: two penalty strokes instead of one.
Here’s how it works. When your ball is lost or out of bounds and you haven’t played a provisional, you estimate two reference points. The first is where your ball likely came to rest or last crossed the boundary. The second is the nearest point of fairway that isn’t closer to the hole than that first point. You then get a relief area between those two reference points, extending up to two club-lengths to the side, where you can drop a ball. The relief area must be in the general area of the course (not in a bunker, penalty area, or on a green) and can’t be closer to the hole than where your ball was estimated to be.
The two-stroke penalty is designed to be roughly equivalent to what you’d score if you went back and replayed. You lose an extra stroke compared to standard stroke and distance, but you save several minutes and avoid the walk of shame back to the tee. This rule can’t be used if your ball is known or virtually certain to be in a penalty area, because penalty areas already have their own lateral relief options. It also can’t be used if you’ve already hit a provisional ball.
Stroke and Distance vs. Penalty Area Relief
One of the most common points of confusion is the difference between a ball lost in the general area and a ball in a penalty area (marked by red or yellow stakes). When your ball goes into a penalty area, you have several relief options that let you drop near the penalty area for just one penalty stroke, including dropping on a line behind the area or, for red penalty areas, dropping within two club-lengths of where the ball last crossed the edge.
When your ball is lost anywhere else on the course or goes out of bounds, those lateral drop options don’t exist under the standard rules. Your only default option is stroke and distance: go back and replay. That’s why hitting out of bounds often feels so much more punishing than hitting into a water hazard, even though both carry a one-stroke penalty. With an out-of-bounds shot, you lose the distance too. The local rule alternative partially closes this gap for recreational play, but it costs you that extra penalty stroke to compensate.