Rules of Golf Review: I just played from the wrong tee box and pumped it OB. Do I have to hit it again from the correct tee?

It's fairly common knowledge that in match play, under Rule 6.1b, you must play in the correct order (the player farthest from the hole goes first). If you play out of order, your opponent can cancel the stroke and make you play again. And that sometimes happens. Just ask Annika Sorenstam. She had to replay a chip at the 2000 Solheim Cup after playing out of order.

What you might not know is how to proceed when your opponent plays a shot from outside the teeing area. Albeit a rare misstep, golfers accustomed to playing a certain set of tees might find themselves accidentally returing to their usual markers when playing from a different set. If they are a blue-tee player playing a match from the greens or whites, not paying attention could lead to the sticky situation in this headline.

Let's start with the fact that if you see your opponent playing from the wrong tees, the right thing to do is try to stop them before he or she makes a stroke. You want to win the match, but do you really want to win that way? But what if you couldn't stop that person in time? And what if that person hits the drive out-of-bounds?

This is where things get interesting. Under Rule 6.1b, you can simply cancel the stroke and make your opponent hit another drive from the correct tee box. However, that person did hit it out of bounds. It would be to your advantage if you didn't have to cancel that stroke. Can you make your opponent continue the hole after that gaffe?

You sure can.

As awkward as it might be, you can refuse to cancel the stroke. If you do, your opponent now has to take a stroke-and-distance penalty and play again from the wrong tee box. Even worse, that golfer can't re-tee since he or she is not playing from the teeing area. This is a situation where you have to drop. Ouch.

(We printed the specific language from the Rules of Golf below to help understand what happens next.)

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The same holds true if your opponent tees up in front of the correct markers and hits it in a brutal spot. You can make that golfer play on with that ball or have to drop if it's out of bounds or lost.

While you might not earn any pats on the back for sportsmanship, it's certainly understandable if you applied this rule in a match where you can't afford to lose another hole.

If, in starting the play of the hole in match play, a strokemade from outside the teeing areais not cancelled, Rule 6.1b(1)/1provides that the player plays the ball as it lies. However, the player may not always be permitted to play the ball as it lies.

For example, when starting play of a hole, a player hits a ball out of boundsfrom outside the teeing area(such as from a wrong set of tee-markers) and the opponentdoes not cancel the stroke.

Since the player’s stroke is not cancelled and the ball is out of bounds, they must take stroke-and-distance relief by playing a ball from where the previous stroke was made. However, as the stroke was not made from inside the teeing area, the ball must be dropped, not teed (seeRule 14.6b—Previous Stroke from General Area, Penalty Area or Bunker).

That's the rule in match play, but you might be wondering what happens in stroke play, as well. The player who plays from the wrong teeing area must correct the error by playing from the correct teeing area and take a two-stroke penalty (strokes with the wrong ball don't count). If the player doesn't correct the mistake before starting the next hole, he or she is disqualified.

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