This came up in our qualifier... On Manderley Central 7 there is a 2 tiered water hazard. The upper level is not visible from the fairway. The fountain is in the upper pond.

The player hits his third shot over the lower pond and sees a splash in the upper one. He drops a ball where the first one crossed over the hazard and plays to the green. When we reach the green we see his first ball laying in the rough, having obviously skipped on the water, but ending up on dry land. So much for seeing a splash being reasonable evidence that the ball is in the water hazard LOL!

We figured that the dropped ball is the ball in play and he lay 5 with it on the green. We were pretty sure we had the correct ruling, but the player finished with both balls just in case, scoring a 5 and a 7 respectively.

I never did hear how the commitee ruled on that, but I wanted to confirm that this was the correct ruling. In my opinion it is unfair to the player, but my opinion is not the issue here