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Woods Faces Disqualification at Masters Woods Penalized for Illegal Ball Drop
(35 minutes later)
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods, who stands three strokes off the lead after 36 holes of the Masters at Augusta, faced disqualification on Saturday for an incident involving a ball drop on the 15th hole of his second round a day earlier. He remains in the field as the Augusta National rules committee reviewed the incident. AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods was assessed a two-stroke penalty on Saturday for taking an illegal drop on the 15th hole of the second round of the Masters a day earlier.
On the hole in question, a 530-yard par 5, Woods’s approach shot clanked off the flagstick on Friday and caromed into the water. He took a drop two yards behind his original divot and hit his approach to inside three feet. In his comments after his round, he seemed to incriminate himself when he explained his thought process on the drop. Golfers can be assess penalty strokes for a drop in the wrong spot; disqualification could occur for signing an incorrect scorecard. Woods was three strokes off the lead when he completed the second round at Augusta on Friday. But Woods will begin his third round Saturday afternoon five strokes back of the leader Jason Day after being assessed the penalty for the illegal drop.
Woods did not sound like someone who was making the drop as close to the original spot as possible when 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.” Woods, 37, could have been disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. But after reviewing the incident 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 ruling was first reported by Golf Channel’s Steve Sands.
The committee invoked a rule, 33-7, which allows a penalty of disqualification to be waived or modified in exceptional cases. The rule was added in 2011 to address the issue of armchair rules officials calling in or posting to Twitter violations that were clearly inadvertent.
On the hole in question, a 530-yard par 5, Woods laid up. His approach clanked off the flagstick and caromed into the water. He took a drop two yards behind his original divot and hit his approach to inside three feet. In his comments after his round, he seemed to incriminate himself when he explained his thought process on the drop.
The rules state that a golfer should play his ball “as nearly as possible” at the spot from which the original ball was played. Woods did not sound like someone who was making the drop as close to the original spot as possible when 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.”
“And that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back,” he said. “I felt that that was going to be the right decision to take off four right there. And I did. It worked out perfectly.”“And that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back,” he said. “I felt that that was going to be the right decision to take off four right there. And I did. It worked out perfectly.”
Woods, a four-time Masters champion in search of his 15th major title, has been guilty of a rules infraction already this year that cost him a weekend of work. In the second round of his season opener in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, he missed the cut after being penalized two strokes for wrongly taking a free drop. His ball was embedded in sand, from which there is no relief. Woods, a four-time Masters champion in search of his 15th major title, has been guilty of a rules infraction already this year, which cost him a weekend of work. In the second round of his season opener in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, he missed the cut after being penalized two strokes for wrongly taking a free drop. His ball was embedded in sand, from which there is no relief.
On Friday, Woods was asked about the one-stroke penalty for slow play that assessed to Guan Tianlang, the young golfer from China. “Well, rules are rules,” he said. On Friday, Woods was asked for his thoughts on the one-stroke penalty for slow play assessed to Guan Tianlang, the young player from China. “Well, rules are rules,” he said.