Posted on 04/13/2013 10:20:07 AM PDT by Perdogg
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How can you possibly disqualify a golfer who relies on your judgment as a rules official regarding a questionable drop when you determine that the drop was legal and you allowed the golfer to submit the signed scorecard without a penalty?
You have given him the approval for his scorecard..........Then the next day you want to DQ him for submitting a bad scorecard AFTER you have determined that he should have been assessed a 2 stroke penalty???????
That just f'n nuts..........
The committee was not compelled to invoke rule 33, and remove the penalty for violation of rule 6-6d, which is DQ.
It was an option for them. They took it.
They could easily have decided that the violation of rule 26 was egregious enough to warrant the DQ for trying to get away with it. Tiger should have know better (it is his responsibility) than to violate rule 26, and even inexperienced players know they have several options to avoid a violation when they are uncertain about how to proceed. (play another ball you know is safe, or ask for a ruling.)
Well good, I’ll put you down as in favor of bureaucratic technicality over skill when given the chance. I hope your next IRS auditor has the same idea of the rules as you do. And your next traffic judge. I want you to fully experience the bureaucratic world you want for the rest of us.
As for me, when the option is DQ or simply a severe penalty, I’ll take the severe penalty unless there was a blatant attempt to cheat. Now, go back and read some more rules and regs. It’s what you live for.
It is not the committee’s responsibility for Tiger to record and sign the correct score. It is Tiger’s.
He did not ask for a ruling on the drop. The rules committee thought (incorrectly) that Tiger dropped as close as possible to the previous spot.
Tiger knew for sure that he did not drop as close as possible to the previous spot. He deliberately dropped 2 yards further back. Tiger knew this all along.
It was Tiger’s responsibility to either know the rule, or get help. Tiger failed.
The committee gave him the penalty for the drop error, but waived the penalty for signing a wrong scorecard.
honor
I have no problem with it. Perhaps you do. I was merely pointing out that both players had unknowingly signed incorrect scorecards. One of them disqualified himself, and the other did not.
You are absolutely right. Thanks for making the case for it so reasonably and, well, honorably.
End of argument.........epic fail!
Zach Nash was shocked when he discovered he had one too many golf clubs in his bag a couple hours after winning a junior Wisconsin PGA tournament.
Big difference between playing a round of golf with an illegal number of clubs and allowing a tournament rules committee to determine you had not committed a rules violation which results in your scorecard being recorded wrong.
Had they ruled properly, Woods have recorded the 2 shot penalty correctly and we wouldn't be discussing this.........
Apples and oranges........
Anyway, he wanted to drop less than a foot from his original lie, further from the green and in a striaght line which would have puy him on the fairway 1st cut, not the pine straw and sand. His argument was that he could drop in a line with his last shot, no closer to the hole which I believe that Tiger also assumed. However, both he and Tiger were wrong.
Again, I have no dog in the fight, but the problem is not knowing the rules and failing to consult an expert when needed.
Or learning that sometimes it is better to not do the interview. After all, as I said before, had he just said, I dropped it next to where I thought I hit the first shot fom, the issue would be over.
From bbc:
Three-time Masters champion Nick Faldo was among the critics who said Woods should have disqualified himself after taking an incorrect drop at the 15th.
But four-time winner Woods said he had “abided by the rules”.
“They called me in, I made a mistake, I took an improper drop and I got the penalty,” said Woods.
Woods analysis
Rob Hodgetts
BBC Sport at Augusta
The rules are complicated and myriad but adhered to diligently and in most cases unflinchingly. Players often call penalties on themselves. Not knowing the rules is not accepted as an excuse.
Read more from Rob
“If it was done a year or two ago, whatever, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to play. But the rules have changed, and under the rules of golf I was able to play.”
The controversial incident happened after Woods’s third shot at the long 15th hit the flagstick and ricocheted back into the pond in front of the green.
Woods took a drop, made bogey and eventually signed for a one-over-par 73.
Tournament officials initially deemed Woods’s drop legal, but decided to review the incident after he said in a post-round interview he dropped the ball “two yards further back”.
It was then determined he had violated the rule governing drops from yellow-marked (lateral) water hazards and handed a two-shot penalty.
Historically, that would have meant disqualification as he had signed for the wrong score - a six rather than an eight.
United States Golf Association Rule 33.7
A penalty of disqualification may in exceptional individual cases be waived, modified or imposed if the Committee considers such action warranted.
Instead they decided to apply a recent reinterpretation of the United States Golf Association rules, meaning that, rather than disqualifying him, they gave him a two-shot penalty.
“He should really sit down and think about this and the mark this will leave on his career, his legacy, everything,” said Faldo.
“It’s just dreadful. Tiger is judge and jury on this. There is absolutely no intention to drop as close to the divot. That’s a breach of the rules.”
Or learning that sometimes it is better to not do the interview. After all, as I said before, had he just said, I dropped it next to where I thought I hit the first shot fom, the issue would be over.
Well interesting: I think Tiger thought he did know the rule, and he paid a severe price for not knowing it. I also think your second point scores points for my side and not yours, but I do enjoy your thought process. Keep in mind, the punishment should fit the crime, and for a rules misinterpretation, he has paid a net four shot penalty - the exact margin between his score and the leader. Remember, this all started with an amazingly perfect golf shot that ran into astonishing bad luck. A heavy price has already been paid - and as you said, had he answered the question a little differently, none of this would have even come up. I think a post defacto interview process is like damned double jeapardy.
Just for the record, Faldo was one of the most unpopular players on tour among other players while he was active - widely disliked. He also has shown Tiger’s propensity for non wives. Just sayin......
It doesn’t matter what he thought, he clearly broke the rules.
...and he was clearly penalized for it. And actually, they did base the penalty on what was in his mind in their opinion - so basically, you just stepped in two piles with one short pithy post.
The ball had no lie, unless lying with the fishes falls in that category. It was unplayable and he was following the procedure to put it back in play under penalty. As you point out, he had several options and he confused two of them. Under one of them, you can go back as far as you wish following a line from you to the hole. He hadn't chosen that option, so his drop was illegal (2 stroke penalty). He and his caddy should have known better and should have called the penalty on themselves.
But, they thought it was legal and when the committee reviewed it, while he was still on the course, they made a ruling that his drop was legal, thereby sanctioning the score that he subsequently signed. They reopened their review when they received the information from the interview with Woods. He was asked about it, explained what he did and that he thought it legal. They ruled differently and assessed a two stroke penalty. The DQ was not on the table at this point because the committee had previously ruled before he signed his card. They invoked Rule 33-1 because that was precisely the circumstance for which the rule was intended. Nick Faldo, after hearing the explanation from the committee, withdrew his earlier opinion and agreed that the committee did the right thing. So too did the USGA and the R&A.
One interesting point in all of this is that all other majors and most other PGA tournaments have rules officials on the course and they can be summoned quickly to make on the spot rulings. We have all seen this. The Masters does not do this, for reasons I do not know. They might want to reconsider that little tradition.
As I said in my first post on this, when notified by a television spectator of what they thought was a rules violation, the rules committee would assume that Tiger and his caddy knew that he should drop as close as possible to the original spot and assume that was what he did, therefore no penalty. When he later said that he delibrately moved 2 yards (his words), then the games changes.
Can one really expect the rules committee to admit that they made an assumption the player and his caddy knew and followed the rule to the best of their ability; they just misidentified the original location? In fact, were I there watching I would also assume that they made a good faith effort to drop is the same spot from which the original shot was made (which can be easily identified if you place a tee or other marker at the spot when you go to examine your options). When Tiger admitted that he moved back 2 yards to give himself the right distance, he admitted that he does not understand the intent of the rule, to take the penalty shot from the "same" location as the original shot; same distance, same slope angle, same grain and so on. If the drop lands in your divot, that is another penalty.
The real issue is, when this decision was made before the start of play today, the odds that Tiger would be in contention on Sunday were pretty low. Now, should he pull off a win, there will be an asterisk next to this victory that makes Roger Maris's 61 hr's asterisk look like a flea on an elephant in comparison.
He wasn’t penalized for his thoughts, he was penalized for his actions on the course (not dropping the ball where he played the last shot from), what are referring to?
the rule about “close to where” you played the last shot is vague. Had he said he thought he was close, he would have not been penalized. Since he said he was behind it two yards, which in many drop situations is perfectly legal, he was therefore penalized for his thoughts, and how he described them. Had he done the exact same thing but answered differently, no penalty.
Next?
well hell par 4, I guess you are right and me, your own USGA buddies, the Masters, Tiger, and his caddy are wrong. Gee whiz, life’s a bitch.
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