The drag and lift forces acting on spheres protruding from a rough boundary are directly measured. The flow velocity at the top level of a sphere is most pertinent as the relative velocity to the drag and lift coefficients, C_D and C_L. C_D is constant at 0.4 in deep flows, whereas it is affected by the depth in shallow flows. C_L is about 0.08. The non-dimensional standard deviation of drag fluctuation varies with the protrusion ratio; however that of lift is roughly constant at 0.4. The probability density and the autocorrelation are well approximated with Gaussian and exponential functions, respectively. The fluctuations of the drag and lift forces are not greatly correlated.