The U.S. Golf Association (USGA) recently posted a video about the rules on Instagram. Viewers of the relief video, posted by a USGA rules official, left a flood of comments claiming the rule had been applied incorrectly.
The video went like this. On a par-3 hole, a tee shot landed in front of the green, then rolled back down the slope and into the water. The water was a red penalty area. The rules official took lateral relief and then played with a foot inside the penalty area. Viewers pointed out that "because the stance was inside the penalty area, the reference point was set wrong."
To state the conclusion first, there was no rules violation in the situation above. The USGA rules official posted the video on Instagram precisely to explain this.
Those who claimed it was a violation appear to have misunderstood the concept of the "nearest point of complete relief (NPCR)." The nearest point of complete relief is the reference point used when taking free relief from an abnormal course condition (Rule 16.1), a dangerous animal condition (Rule 16.2), a wrong green (Rule 13.1f) or a no-play zone (Rules 16.1f and 17.1e), or when taking relief under certain local rules. When taking relief in the situations listed above, the reference point must be free of any interference related to the condition (Definitions). In addition, when playing after the drop, the stance and area of swing must also be free of interference related to the condition.
For example, when taking relief from a cart path, at the nearest point of complete relief the stance and the lie of the ball must be free of interference from the cart path. If a player takes relief and then plays while standing on that cart path, the player has played from a wrong place and receives the general penalty (two strokes in stroke play, loss of the hole in match play) (Rule 14.7a).
Penalty area relief, however, is different. In the case of lateral relief, the reference point is the estimated point where the original ball last crossed the edge of that red penalty area. A player may stand in a penalty area to play a ball that is outside it, and may also stand in the penalty area after taking penalty area relief (Rule 17.1). In other words, the position of the stance does not matter.
There is a similar case, concerning the teeing area. A player may stand outside the teeing area when playing a ball that is inside it (Rule 6.2b). Standing in an out-of-bounds (OB) area to make a stroke at a ball on the course works on the same principle.
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