Tournament officials at Augusta, already smarting for the one shot penalty they assessed 14 year old Tianlang Guan for slow play, have another controversial decision to make this morning.
Tiger Woods may well have made an illegal drop after his much publicized wedge shot into 15 hit the pin and spun back into the water.
Tiger decided not to use the assigned drop area, and here's where the possible problem occurred
He went back to where his original shot was played, but decided to move two yards further back, from where he produced a stunning shot to make bogey.
Rule 26-1 states that he should play his second attempt as near as possible from the spot of the first, and in Woods' own words he decided to move it two yards back
This is what he said is his post round interview..
"I went down to the drop area, that wasn't going to be a good spot, because obviously it's into the grain and it was a little bit wet, so I went back to where I played it from, but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit. I felt that that was going to be the right decision to take off four right there. And I did, it worked out perfectly"
It is the fact that he moved the ball further back that could be his undoing, as that could be deemed by officials to be a breach of the rules, and that would carry a two-shot penalty.
Further complicating matters is, since Woods had already signed his scorecard for an incorrect scorecard comes with the penalty of disqualification from the event.
This will come down to a discussion with Tiger and the referee. I believe it is a real touchy decision If he did it deliberately because he preferred one or two more yards to give him a perfect yardage then he should be disqualified.
If he just thought it was near enough the original spot then that's fine but only he knows.
He seemed to indicate in the interview (" I tried to take two yards off the shot" ) that he did it deliberately, leaving officials no option but to DQ him.
Especially after referee John Paramor, interviewed after the Guan decision for slow play, said it didn't matter that he was 14, or who he was, he was simply applying the rules of golf..
We'll see if they have the balls to announce they are applying those rules to Tiger later this morning !!
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