If you don’t know what’s going on with Tiger Woods at The Masters this year then you don’t live on this planet.
On Friday afternoon at Augusta, Tiger strutted to the 15th tee with a flawless scorecard (3 birdies and no bogeys). After a slightly pushed drive, he elected to layup with a perfectly placed 2nd shot. And the rest is history.
Tiger’s third shot hit the pin and spun off into the water, forcing him to take a drop. After review (and after Tiger finished his round) the rules committee determined that the drop he took was illegal and that he should be assessed a two-shot penalty for breaking the rules.
The question that everyone is asking now is not whether Tiger actually broke the rules, because he obviously did, but rather if he should have been disqualified for signing his scorecard without the two shots added to his total score.
Without getting too technical, one of the first rules in competitive golf states that if you sign your scorecard with a number that is lower than your actual score, you’re automatically disqualified. It doesn’t matter where you go or what tournament you’re playing in, or if you unintentionally marked down the wrong score, or if your pencil made your nine look like a four, this rule is consistent. Pack your bags, you’re going home, or in Tiger’s case, get a good night’s sleep because you’re playing again tomorrow.
It’s highly unlikely that Woods intentionally cheated. He’s a professional golfer with no prior history and judging from his post-round interview, it appeared he simply just misinterpreted the rule (or had some sort of mental breakdown). But unintentional or not, the rules are the rules, and breaking them has consequences. So the second question on everyone’s mind (Tiger included probably) is did he receive special treatment because he is who he is?
Whether you believe Woods should have been DQ’d or not is simply a matter of opinion but there’s no doubt that the real losers in this entire situation are the individuals that make up the rules committee at Augusta. They publicly stated that they reviewed Tiger’s drop before he finished his round and decided it was within the rules. Then—three hours later they reviewed the drop again and decided it wasn’t.
Any confusion in this situation can directly be attributed to the way they’ve handled the past 24 hours and while they may have ultimately made the “fairest” decision by not disqualifying Tiger, they certainly polarized the situation and made it a much bigger deal than it had to be.
The final round at Augusta will certainly be interesting. Will an Australian win for the first time? Can Adam Scott bounce back from his heartbreak at last year’s British Open? Will Tiger come back from four shots behind and win his 15th major (one that will probably be an extremely controversial topic of discussion for many years to come)?
Only time will tell.
There is one thing we do know for sure though. Read the rule book and you can save yourself a whole lot of controversy. Just ask Tiger.