[ed. This seems to be a terrible decision, any way you look at it. Why didn't one of the numerous rules officials around the course advise him at the time that it was going to be an illegal drop? Why wait until after the news conference in which he discussed his thought process? And, what if he hadn't said anything, would he still be penalized? Finally, if he was officially determined to have violated the rules, why allow him to keep playing after signing an invalid scorecard (and why didn't he DQ himself)? The rules officials seem to be promoting exactly what Rule 33-7 was designed to prevent - armchair officiating. See also: Mistakes Compounded in Tiger Ruling.]
Tiger Woods was three strokes off the lead in the Masters when he completed the second round at Augusta National Golf Club on Friday. But he began his third round five strokes behind the leader Jason Day after being assessed a two-stroke penalty on Saturday for an illegal drop on the 15th hole of the second round.Woods, 37, was summoned to Augusta National hours before his tee time Saturday with his participation uncertain for the third round of a tournament he has won four times.
He could have been disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. But after reviewing the episode with Woods, the rules committee at Augusta National chose to add two strokes to Woods’s score and allow him to play the weekend. The committee invoked Rule 33-7, which allows a penalty of disqualification to be waived or modified in exceptional cases. The rule addresses the issue of armchair rules officials’ calling in or posting to Twitter violations that are clearly inadvertent.
On the hole in question, a 530-yard par 5, Woods laid up. His approach shot clanked off the flagstick and caromed into the water. After taking a one-stroke penalty, Woods dropped his ball in the fairway, a few feet behind his original divot, and hit a wedge shot to within three feet and made the putt for a bogey 6. After the ruling, his score was changed to an 8.
When choosing to drop near one’s divot, a golfer should play his ball “as nearly as possible” at the spot from which the original ball was last played. After his round, Woods said he purposely dropped the ball two yards from his first divot.
He said: “Well, I went down to the drop area, that wasn’t going to be a good spot, because obviously it’s into the grain, it’s really grainy there. And it was a little bit wet. So it was muddy and not a good spot to drop. So I went back to where I played it from, but two yards further back, and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit.”
The committee’s decision not to disqualify Woods, a 77-time winner on the PGA Tour, reinforced how the rules of golf, once clear, have grown blurry. From the definition of a legal putting stroke to the enforcement of slow play, there has been confusion about the way to interpret and apply the rules. On Friday, Guan Tianlang, a 14-year-old amateur from China, became the only known player in Masters history to be assessed a one-stroke penalty for slow play, which is endemic on the tour. Many players in the field wondered why Guan was singled out when some professionals routinely play with great deliberation and are never penalized with strokes.
by Karen Crouse, NY Times | Read more:
Photo: Charlie Riedel/Associated Press
