Are you kidding? The “more information” they got was Tiger saying in the post-round interview that he had violated the rule (even though he didn’t know that’s what he was saying). I won’t fault them for not seeing that the drop was far enough behind to create an advantage, that it might not have been an honest mistake. They were just eyeballing a TV replay because some knucklehead called in, something that happens dozens of times during some tournaments. Most of the time there’s no violation. The difference here? Tiger gives himself up after the fact. Holy shit, they must have thought! How do we fix this now?
Listen, what they should have done was corral him before he signed to discuss this. They weren’t obligated to, but it would have avoided this mess. But they didn’t. The only new information they gained after he signed was his admission that he intentionally took a drop that, as it turns out, was a violation of the rules. That’s a crappy sequence for Tiger, but that’s what happened. It’s his responsibility to assess the penalty.
ETA: IOW, they learned nothing new to support a conclusion that “the competitor could not reasonably have known or discovered the facts resulting in his breach of the Rules.”
See, here’s where I agree up to this point and then disagree afterwards. And I’m not a Tiger Woods fan, but it seems to me that if Woods must be disqualified for this, the rules do not function correctly.
The primary offense Woods committed was not signing an incorrect scorecard; it was taking an illegal drop. Woods’s signing of the incorrect scorecard is a conditional offense, one that only exists when it is determined that the original offense (the drop) should have been penalized.
Your quotation of the rules that states a penalty should be waived only if “… the competitor could not reasonably have known or discovered the facts resulting in his breach of the Rules.” is quite valid with respect to the illegal drop. Woods has no excuse for that; it was a stupid thing to do and he’s responsible for it. But there is no reason to believe he deliberately signed an incorrect scorecard. In the case of that action, it actually does appear he did not know the facts. He was wrong about the illegal drop, but given that he was wrong he believed his scorecard was correct.
Anyway, here’s my point about the rules being flawed; if you DQ a player for a scorecard violation as a result of a previous violation being assessed,*** you can never penalize a player by any way other than disqualification.*** In any case where it is discovered after the fact that a player should have been assessed a penalty, he must always be disqualified, since his scorecard will always have been signed with the wrong score. That is the inevitably logical result of interpreting Rule 6-6d the way you are interpreting it. The Committee could never assess a penalty of strokes; it’s always strokes and a DQ, since the first penalty makes the scorecard violation automatic.
A more logical, and frankly sportsmanlike, interpretation of Rule 6-6d is that it means what it appears to actually say; that the competitor is responsible for signing an accurate scorecard that represents his true and accurate understanding of the score s/he has during the round. We’ve no evidence Woods did not do exactly that. If you then RETROACTIVELY apply a penalty of X strokes, that does not change the fact that the player signed, in good faith, a scorecard he reasonably assumed was accurate given his or her command of the facts at the time. By separating those acts, you give the Committee the ability to do exactly what they have done here; to apply a penalty that actually resolves the offense.
We are in 100% agreement. The Augusta Rules Chairman made it a point that it would be unfair to DQ Tiger since they decided before his round was over that no rule violation had taken place. That analysis is absurd because: 1) They never talked to Tiger or told him that he didn’t violate a rule, and 2) Tiger admitted on TV that he did violate a rule. There was no unfairness to Tiger Woods if they would have disqualified him for violating a rule that he should have known about, and for signing an incorrect scorecard that he should have known was incorrect.
But Tiger himself knew the facts. He knew that he dropped the ball 2 yards back for an advantage. If he didn’t know this was a violation of the rules, then he should have. Golf is not basketball or football. The golfer is to assess penalties and apply the rules himself.
There was no need for a “determination” by officials. Unlike Harrington who did not know his ball had moved, Tiger knew that he dropped his ball where he did. Even if he didn’t know it was a rules violation, he should have. Hell, I know the rules. A multi-millionaire who makes his living playing the game should be able to quote them in his sleep.
The “safe harbor” of Rule 33-7 is there to protect a Padraig Harrington violation…not an ignorance of the rules violation.
I ran across the entry on a golf blog from two years ago when rule 33-7 was adopted.
Bolding mine
If that analysis is correct, the bolded text tells me that Tiger should have been disqualified because Tiger did not know how to proceed under the rule. And that rule is not a obscure rare occurrence.
Masters Powers That Be are claiming that it was their error.
Here is the chain of events according to the Rules Committee
Tiger took an improper drop on hole 15, about 6:15 pm
Armchair “Snitches” called ESPN/ANGC and told them about a possible rules violation while Tiger finishes round
Masters Officials reviewed the tape, determine no violation had taken place
Tiger holes out 18 and signs scorecard.
Tiger talks to Press/Media and says he dropped 2 yds behind the original spot
Media and Social Media start noting the inconsistencies with Rule 26-1 and Tiger’s story. The armchair snitches turned out to be correct.
Number 3 above is key, the Rules Committee say that they dismissed the “Snitch” calls. And since they dismissed them before Tiger signs his scorecard, it is the Rules Committee fault and 33-7 can be applied.
Personally I don’t believe any snitches called. I think it is a total fabrication. I watched the incident like millions of others. IMO, there was no way to determine that Tiger dropped improperly from the telecast. It was not obvious. No ESPN commentators noticed it. No one from Golf Channel noticed it.
The first time I got wind of the snafu was this dope thread at about Midnite eastern time about 4.5 hours after Tiger finished 18 holes. And then I searched on Twitter and it was starting to rev up.
I think ANGC Rules Committee is taking the bullet here so Tiger does not get DQed. They already had a PR problem by giving the young 14 year a slow play problem and they sure did not want another PR nightmare.
I stayed with twitter and some blogs until about 1:30 am et. I read some golf forums and I was sure that TW would be DQed before the third round started. There were poor deluded posters at TigerWoods.com that were pathetically whining and crying.
Main reasons why I think ANGC took the bullet.
The player was Tiger Woods.
The Rules Committee was already under the gun for penalizing a 14 year old kid.
The improper drop was not readily noticeable on the telecast and I don’t think anyone called. I know the rule and if someone had told me there was a violation in Tigers group on 15, I don’t think I would have been able to identify it. It was that subtle.
ANGC does not leave many stones unturned. If someone had called, they would have taken it seriously and escorted Tiger to review the incident on camera.
Please give a cite for your assertion that Tiger knew that when a golfer hits a shot and it caroms off the flagstick at an odd angle and has enough speed to enter a water trap that said golfer has to drop the ball on a line from where he hit it in the same spot from where he hit it.
I agree, he should have applied a two stroke penalty. He was wrong about where he dropped the ball.
He was not wrong about how he signed the scorecard. That is a distinct act, separate from the illegal drop. The committee applied a penalty that reversed what Woods did incorrectly.
I again would point out that if you interpret Rule 6-6d the way you are proposing to, as opposed to the way I am reading it, the Committee must always disqualify a player in this or any other similar circumstance. They cannot apply any other penalty. If you interpret it as I do, the Committee’s ability to resolve the situation actually makes a lot more sense.
Reason #1 above is why he got away with it! Does anyone (**Tony Sinclair **in particular) really believe the Masters wants to DQ their meal ticket, the reason people watch?
What would have happened if the offense hadn’t been discovered in any way until the player confessed to it in an interview after signing his card? Is it valid in any way that the rules officials, based on incomplete info, had made a decision that he wasn’t even aware of?
Tiger was asked in an interview on CBS after his round whether he ever considered DQing himself? His answer was that the rules didn’t allow him to. Is that correct?
Full disclosure… I’m not a big fan of Tiger. Primarily because he takes himself so seriously on the course and acts like a jerk (IMHO). I think the rules should be relaxed in many ways but if anybody should be forced to adhere to the letter of the law it’s him.
Yes! RickJay, I’m not sure how much of a golf fan you are, but you say this as if this is some undiscovered non sequitur. It is not. When you say, “if you DQ a player for a scorecard violation as a result of a previous violation being assessed,*** you can never penalize a player by any way other than disqualification***,” the answer is, yes, and it has always been so. There are many, many examples of this occurring. It generally involved good guys who f#$%ed up without evil intentions, and that does suck.
The only recent change is that the Padraig Harringtons of the world, guys who knew the rule and reasonably believed they were following the proper rule, won’t get DQ’d if the committee believes he had no knowledge of the facts that resulted in the breach (e.g., the ball moved minutely, but it was only detected in slow-mo replay by a golf nerd with a VCR; the golfer didn’t know it moved).
jtgain said it already. The facts that resulted in the breach are these: Tiger knew where he had hit the shot, and he dropped 2 yards behind that spot. That’s it, it’s pretty simple. The only thing that could mitigate this is something that showed Tiger could not reasonably have known these facts. Of course he did, though! He pointed these very facts out in the post-round interview. There’s simply no basis for waiving the DQ, based on how the rules are currently written. People want his knowledge of the rule to be a factor, to be one of the “facts,” but it is not, and it has never been, and the rule change impacting 33-7 doesn’t change that. You sign for a wrong score, you get the death penalty (excepting situations where the golfer could not reasonably have known the facts that resulted in the breach).
Now, whether or not the rules are to anyone’s liking, or if they’re sportsman-like, or whatever, is a different debate. But there’s no pass for signing a wrong score “unknowingly.” And if we do focus on the spirit of that rule, I can see the logic. There is no worse offense than signing for a score lower than the one you deserve. Make it your business to sign the right one! Know the rules, follow them! Because the rules guys aren’t going to administer lie detector tests to determine who really understood the rules and who was honestly confused. It’s a slippery slope I would not permit. But, again, that’s all hypothetical because that’s not how the rules are written currently.
Not based on the rule they invoked, or on any rule I’m aware of (and I’m no expert). Think of it this way: Tiger had not asked for a ruling. The officials were basically just watching TV, like you or me. There was no “official” process in play when they eyeballed the sequence of events. They are assigning some weight to this post facto that doesn’t exist, ISTM.
Not sure if this is technically correct, but it probably is. What is completely within Tiger’s power, of course, is to withdraw from the competition, and Mr. “Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth” is well aware of that.
Yeah. I can see that. I’m more of a “the rules apply to everyone equally” guy.
Already answered in the post above but I will add my opinion.
According to a Fred Ridley (Chairman of ANGC Rules Committee) is that ANGC got several phone calls immediately after Tiger made the illegal. They reviewed the tape and determined that no breach had occurred. This was all done after the incident and before Tiger finished his 18th hole. (about 1 hour)
Yes, a player can DQ himself. According to Doug Ford’z wiki bio, he won a tournament when Sam Snead DQed himself:
You’re ascribing to me things I’ve not said or suggested and that I don’t believe. I am not saying his failure to apply the correct rule for the illegal drop should be overlooked, or that his alleged lack of knowledge of the rule for the drop should be overlooked. I am saying that in this case, the Committee, using the rules as they are in fact written, applied a penalty that perfectly corrected the proximate offense (taking an illegal drop) and I just don’t see the problem with that.
Had they said “well, he didn’t know the rule about the drop, so no penalty will be applied at all; play on” that would absolutely have been idiotically wrong.
If he didn’t know the Rules of Golf, he should have. The safe harbor provisions of Rule 33-7 are for instances where the player did not know the factual situation that happened, not a Get out of Jail Free card for not knowing the rules.
The problem with that is the failure to apply another rule, which calls for disqualification of a player who signs for a lower score than he achieved.
This may be a harsh and even unjust rule, that should be changed tomorrow - but it is one of long standing and has been applied many times. I’d be interested to know if there is another case where a professional golfer was not disqualified for this.
Tiger’s knowledge of the rules isn’t relevant here. The penalty for failure to know and follow a rule is identical to the penalty for deliberately violating that rule.
Dow Finsterwald at the 1960 Masters. He broke a different rule, but the Committee made exactly the same decision; two stroke penalty, but no DQ for signing an incorrect scorecard.