Overview
- Effective for the season opener at the Sony Open in Hawaii, the change reduces lift, clean and place from roughly a club length to about 11 inches.
- The revision aligns PGA Tour practice with other circuits such as the DP World Tour by using standardized scorecards for measurement.
- Officials emphasized preferred lies will still be invoked only in limited situations like widespread mud, temporary-water relief outside fairways, or poor fairway conditions.
- Guidance lets players fix an over-placement outside the scorecard-length area before the next stroke without penalty to avoid inadvertent breaches.
- The update arrives within a broader package of 2026 model local rules that expand embedded-ball relief, cut penalties when a player was unaware the ball moved, limit internal out of bounds to tee shots, adjust relief near greens, and allow club repairs using components.