The course: five areas and a boundary.

The boundary

Rule 2.1 gives the Committee the job of setting the course boundaries. Everything outside them is out of bounds. Under Rule 18.2a a ball at rest is out of bounds only when all of it lies outside the boundary edge, so a ball touching the line is still in. You may stand out of bounds to play a ball that is on the course. A ball that goes out of bounds costs you stroke and distance: one penalty stroke, and you play again from where you made the previous stroke (Rule 18.2b).

The five areas

Rule 2.2 divides everything inside the boundary into five areas: one general area and four specific areas.

A ball is always treated as lying in only one area (Rule 2.2c). If it is partly in the general area and partly in a specific area, it is in the specific area. If it touches two specific areas, the order of priority is penalty area first, then bunker, then putting green.

The general area

Before you reach the green, you will usually be playing from the general area, which Rule 2.2a describes as where the ball is most often played until it reaches the putting green. The Rules draw no line between fairway and rough: both are simply general area. That matters when you take relief, because the Rules make no distinction between them when you drop.

The teeing area

The teeing area is where each hole begins. The Rules of Golf Definitions page on randa.org showed only the heading for this term when it was checked, so the detail here comes from R&A guidance reported in November 2019. Shona McRae, then the R&A's Assistant Rules Director, described it as a rectangle: the front edge is a line between the forward-most points of the two tee-markers, the sides run back from the outer points of the markers, and it is two club-lengths deep. The same guidance suggested setting the markers about six paces apart and far enough forward for the full depth to be usable. A club-length is the length of the longest club you have for the round, other than a putter.

A player's right to play first from the teeing area is called the honour (Definitions, Rule 6.4). On the first stroke of a hole you may tee the ball up; a tee may be no longer than 4 inches (101.6 mm).

Penalty areas

Rule 17 describes penalty areas as bodies of water, or other areas the Committee defines, where a ball is often lost or cannot be played. The 2019 modernisation renamed what used to be "water hazards" and let Committees mark areas such as desert, jungle and lava rock as penalty areas too.

Penalty areas are marked red or yellow, and the colour changes your choices. You may play the ball as it lies without penalty, or take relief for one penalty stroke. A yellow penalty area gives two relief options and a red one gives three, the extra one being a sideways drop within two club-lengths of where the ball last crossed the edge (Rule 17.1d). A ball is in a penalty area when any part of it touches the ground or anything inside the edge, or lies above it. Model Local Rule B-2 can allow relief on the opposite side of a red penalty area, but only where a Committee adopts it. See penalty areas for the full procedure.

Bunkers

Rule 12 calls bunkers specially prepared areas meant to test your ability to play from sand. Under Rule 12.1 a ball is in a bunker when any part of it touches sand inside the bunker's edge, or lies inside the edge where sand would normally be (for example where wind or water has removed it). A ball inside the edge that sits on soil or grass without touching sand is not in the bunker. Before a stroke from a bunker you must not touch the sand to test it, touch it with your club right in front of or behind the ball, or touch it in a practice swing or the backswing (Rule 12.2b). More on the bunkers page.

The putting green

A ball is on the putting green when any part of it touches the green, or lies on or in something inside its edge (Rule 13.1a). The green has its own freedoms: you may mark, lift and clean your ball, remove sand and loose soil, and repair damage such as ball-marks and shoe damage (Rule 13.1). If your ball comes to rest on a green belonging to another hole, relief is compulsory under Rule 13.1f. See the putting green for the flagstick and the other details.

Things on the course

Rule 2.3 lists the objects and conditions that can bring free relief: loose impediments (Rule 15.1), movable obstructions (Rule 15.2) and abnormal course conditions, which are animal holes, ground under repair, immovable obstructions and temporary water (Rule 16.1). There is no free relief from boundary objects or integral objects. Rule 2.4 also lets a Committee mark no play zones inside an abnormal course condition or a penalty area; if your ball lies in one, or it interferes with your stance or swing, you must take relief.

How long is a course?

The R&A guidance on teeing areas says the Rules do not tie the position of tee-markers to a hole's length or par; that belongs to the handicap system. Under the 2024 revisions to the World Handicap System, a set of tees can now receive a Course Rating and Slope Rating at as little as 1,500 yards (1,370 m) for 18 holes and 750 yards (685 m) for 9 holes, which the R&A says brings thousands of shorter and par-3 courses into handicapping. The handicaps page explains what the ratings mean.

How many courses there are

The R&A's Golf Around the World report (2021 edition, built on the National Golf Foundation's database) counted more than 38,000 courses in 206 of the world's 251 countries and territories as of 2020. The United States held about 42 percent of them, followed by Japan (3,140) and the United Kingdom (3,101). The National Golf Foundation counted about 16,000 courses at about 14,000 facilities in the United States at the end of 2025.