Dear Rules Crew:

My playing competitor with whom I was sharing a cart, drove our cart up to the putting green and parked it and walked out. I hit my shot from the fairway and it hit our cart and bounced onto the putting green. Do I play it from there and do I incur a penalty?

-Jack S., Riverside

The Ruling

You might think that this kind of occurrence only happens once in a lifetime but this exact scenario was one of the USGA’s five most-asked Rules questions in 2025. Luckily, ever since 2023, the answer to this question is very much in your favor.

Rule 11.1a covers this situation, and there is no penalty if your ball strikes you or any of your equipment. Since the ball was played from the fairway in this case, Rule 11.1b(1) has you play from where the ball lies. That’s a double-good break considering that had the ball bounded into a penalty area, you’d be looking at penalty relief options instead of the starting line of your putt.

The short version: Except for one scenario on the putting green (Exception to Rule 11.1a), any time your ball in motion accidentally hits a person or outside influence, you play the ball as it lies with no penalty.