Yesterday Tiger Woods on the 15th hole at the Masters hit an unbelievable shot: the ball hit the flag stick, but with enough force that it proceeded to roll back into the pond in front of the Green. Woods chose to take a drop from the original spot (as the rules allow). But in the post-match interview (remember this), he admitted that the failed to make the drop as close as he could to the original spot. This is a violation of the rules of golf and has a two-stroke penalty attached to it. Since Woods failed to include the strokes on his signed scorecard, he signed an incorrect scorecard with a score that is lower than his actual score, for which the penalty is a disqualification.
This morning, Augusta National announced that Tiger would simply be allowed to add the two-stroke penalty to his score and would not be disqualified. They cited a 2011 rule interpretation change introduced by the USGA and R&A (the two governing bodies of golf) that allowed for a disqualification penalty to not be assessed if the player had no reasonable knowledge that a penalty occurred. This was in response to a number of situations where a TV viewer called tournament officials to report a violation that was only visible due to a TV broadcast. The problem is that no one called this in: Woods himself admitted he broke the rules. This happened the same day that the youngest entrant in Masters history, Tianlang Guan, was hit with a one-shot penalty for slow play: the first time anyone has enforced that call at a major in nine years. The general feel after that was that it a dick move: it was a violation, but given that the PGA has a notorious history of slow play and not aggressively enforcing the rule, to decide to enforce it on a 14 year old at his first major trying to make the cut on a windy day at arguably the toughest golf course in the world was unnecessary. Sir Nick Faldo (who works the 18th with Jim Nantz) just went on the Golf Channel and absolutely destroyed Augusta National for this decision, calling it "dreadful", noting that Tiger admitted it he deliberately moved, and called for Woods to withdraw. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's unanimous, but there's an overwhelming opinion that this was a horrifically bad decision by Augusta National. Unrelated to this, Bob Costas went on Dan Patrick's show yesterday and noted that he would likely only make it through one Masters broadcast (not that he'd ever get the chance to as an employee of NBC) because he feels CBS has been so subservient to Augusta National, he'd feel obligated at some point to point this out (see http://deadspin.com/bob-costas-slams-cbs-and-jim-nantz-over-gutless-masters-472663580 ). So with all this on the table... We know CBS treats the Masters and Augusta National with kid gloves (go ask Jack Whitaker and Gary McCord from the comfort of their couches). We know they ignore *everything* that happens outside the ropes. But this is a huge issue that involves the number one player in the world and the most famous golfer of his day if not all time. It happened within the ropes. How will CBS deal with this? We'll have to wait until 3:00 to find out. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
