SmashMouth

Masters officials assessed a two-stroke penalty to Tiger Woods on Saturday morning for taking an illegal drop on the No. 15 hole during Friday's second round of the tournament.

He will start Round 3 with a two-round score of 1-under 143, making him five strokes back of leader Jason Day, who is 6 under.

Rule 33-7 allows the officials committee to use discretion in waiving a disqualification in favor of a penalty. This apparently is why officials only assessed a penalty rather than disqualifying Woods for signing an illegal scorecard. Woods tees off today at 12:45 p.m. CST.

Fred Ridley, chairman of the rules committee, said in a statement tournament officials were notified of the improper drop by a TV viewer on Friday and reviewed a video of the shot while Woods was playing the 18th hole.

"At the moment and based on the evidence, the Committee determined he had complied with the Rules," Ridley said.

However, tournament officials changed their mind after hearing Woods say in a post-round TV interview that he had played his shot further from the point than where he had played his third shot.

"Such action would constitute playing from the wrong place," Ridley said. "The subsequent information provided by the players' interview after he had completed play warranted further review and discussion with him this morning. After meeting with the player, it was determined that he had violated Rule 26, and he was assessed a two-stroke penalty. The penalty of disqualification was waived by the Committee under Rule 33 as the Committee had previously reviewed the information and made its initial determination prior to the final of the player's round."

The controversy brewed Saturday morning, a half-day after Woods completed his round of 71 on Friday to position himself within three shots of the lead.

Woods took a drop after his approach shot on No. 15 hit the flag stick and bounced into the water.

Under Rule 26-1, Woods had three options at the yellow-staked (not lateral) hazard, which is a pond that fronts the green:

• He could have played from a designated drop area.

• He could drop the ball, keeping the point where it last crossed the margin of the water between the hole and the spot on which the ball would be dropped.

• Or, he could return to the original spot from which he played, and drop "as nearly as possible,'' from where he played the third shot.

This is the option Woods chose.

After the round Friday, Woods said: "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."

CBS golf analyst Nick Faldo, a former Masters champion, said he thinks Woods should withdraw from the tournament because of the controversy, a sentiment echoed by PGA golfer David Duval on Twitter: "I think he should WD. He took a drop to gain an advantage."

Duval later added: DQ believers aren't wrong. 2 shot penalty believers not wrong. Precedent is now set. ...We all live with the committee decision now. Time to move on."

Other players supported Woods.

Graeme McDowell tweeted: "2 shot penalty for TW (Tiger Woods) for wrong drop. New rule applied for trial by tv. Instead of retrospective DQ, player receives a penalty. Decent rule. ... Take the fact that it was Tiger out of the equation and it is a fair ruling."

Hunter Mahan also supported the decisionon Twitter: "Two shot penalty official. I like this ruling because he took an illegal drop but no official brought it to his attn."

Tiger Woods assessed two-stroke penalty but not disqualified from Masters for illegal drop | NOLA.com

Mardigras9

Haters gonna hate. Funny how Duval totally waffled on his statement on his second tweet.

TheOak

I like how Tiger so easily just takes 6 feet off of his shot. Those guys make it look so easy.

Wish I could take 60 feet off my slice....

RaginCajun83

Its only cheating if you get caught, so going by that rule. I guess he did. He didn't win, so in the long run who cares. Besides the Masters has it own set of rules, its the only tournament that doesn't have rule officials walk with the golfers

QBREES9

Hey It's Tiger.