Tiger Woods Controversial Masters Drop

Golf is a beautiful game. It is played all around the world and by all sorts of people.  Golf also has some of the greatest events of all sports history. The greatest tournament in the history of golf just concluded Saturday and that is the Masters. Stakes are always high at the Masters and the finish is always close. The course is always one of the toughest courses on tour and if you combine that with the will to win of everyone in the tournament, you better bring your ‘A’ game or Augusta will eat you alive. Tiger Woods was the favorite coming into the tournament this week. He was coming off a win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and was playing some of the hottest golf of his career. Tiger had struck misfortune, something you do not want to do at the Masters. Tiger was at the fifteenth hole in the second round of play on Friday at Augusta. Tiger had a short chip over the water hazard to go up and down for his birdie. This is when the misfortune strikes. Tiger strikes the ball perfectly; the ball takes one hop on the green, hits the flagstick, and shoots straight back into the hazard. Tiger has to take a drop and ended up hitting on the green and making a bogey. This was very upsetting to Tiger and ended up finishing the day at -2 for the tournament. Throughout the night, analysts were reviewing Tiger’s drop at the fifteenth hole. According to the rules of golf, you have a few options when u hit into the yellow marked hazard. Option one; you can drop in the marked drop zone. Option two; you may go where the ball first entered the hazard ad as far back, no closer to the hole, as you like. Option three; drop as close as possible to the spot where you played the shot that went into the hazard. Tiger chose the option to drop nearest to where he played his first shot. The drop looked fine until after his round that day, Tiger admitted to dropping farther away from where he originally played the ball and that there was a violation. Therefore, Tiger would have signed an incorrect scorecard at the end of his round disqualifying him from the Masters tournament. However, there is a rule that can waive disqualification if there is an error that players made that they were unaware of, which is Tiger’s case. The debate was if Tiger should have taken the disqualification and withdrawn from the Masters for the sake of sportsmanship. I believe he made the right decision and played because if there is a rule then he should be able to have that option it would be no different for any other player. Do you think Tiger made the right decision to play? What would you do?

 

Here is the latest link to the article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/2013/04/13/tiger-woods-assessed-2-shot-penalty-from-masters/2079725/