A player is responsible for finding their ball in play after each stroke.

The player may fairly search for the ball by taking reasonable actions to find and identify it, such as:

• Moving sand and water, and
• Moving or bending grass, bushes, tree branches and other growing or attached natural objects, and also breaking such objects, but only if such breaking is a result of other reasonable actions taken to find or identify the ball.

If taking such reasonable actions as part of a fair search improves the conditions affecting the stroke:

• There is no penalty under Rule 8.1a if the improvement results from a fair search.
• But if the improvement results from actions that exceeded what was reasonable for a fair search, the player gets the general penalty for breach of Rule 8.1a.

In trying to find and identify the ball, the player may remove loose impediments as allowed in Rule 15.1 and may remove movable obstructions as allowed in Rule 15.2.

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