Ludicrous rules decisions at Augusta

Tianlang penalised a shot for slow play - when has any pro been penalised when most of them play like slugs with sore feet?

And now Tiger penalised two for taking a drop in the wrong place.

I have no idea why he's been penalised - seems to me he was absolutely entitled to take the drop from where he did.

The USGA is risking making golf a laughing stock with these insane decisions. And worst of all, nobody seems capable of explaining any of it.

Tiger's mistake was admitting in the press conference that he took his shot two yards further back than what it was. Nobody else had picked it up as far as I'm aware and this is not allowed. It's a pretty stupid rule, he's gained no advantage in my opinion but people are getting all upset about it and jumping on the bandwagon because of the name of the player.

He's already birdied the first hole on the third round. I'm expecting this farse to energise Tiger to a low round.

He was entitled to take it back as far as he wanted.

Now i understand why they penalised him - the ball rebounded at an angle off the pin. If he was going to drop further away then he had to drop on the line the ball was running away from the pin. If he wanted to play on the original line then it had to be from the original spot.

Penalising the kid was wrong though.

Even Macchiavelli would think the ruling is dodgy.

They did say it was Tigers to lose. Seems to have unwittingly gone out of his way to lose it.

This has been issued by the R and A to, I guess, justify the Tiger Woods DQ issue at the Masters. It's quite well put together as you would expect and does seem to admit that the Masters Committee's incompetence was every bit as much to blame as Woods' basic rules knowledge.

http://www.randa.org/en/RandA/News/News/2013/May/Rules-Statement.aspx

Just a few add-ons which spring to mind on the incident.

IF the referee had been on the spot as Woods dropped the ball and been asked if it was OK and then allowed him to play from there, then there would have been NO penalty at all as the referee's decision is final even if wrong (I've been a ref myself and knowthis one to my embarrassment).

IF Woods had pressed the divot down, gone forward to the hazard,then decided he was going to play his next shot from where he played his last and returned to that spot he would have had to determine the spot of his previous shot by his best estimate. In which case he could quite likely have legitimately ended up dropping at the spot where he did actually play from.

IF he hadn't said anything about the drop at the interview they would probably not have been able to do anything.

Considering how exact the rules of golf are by necessity, this rule is extremely sloppy and needs to be reviewed. 'As near as possible' is very vague and the more accurate your drop the worse spot you will be in as you could very likely be in the same divot you have just created. Somone may think within three foot is near enough while somone else may think that one foot is more like it. Surely easier to say within one club length of the original spot and have done with it.

For what it's worth I think the Masters Blazer Boys bottled the original viewing after the viewer's phone call because it was Woods involved and I can only imagine their agony when he grassed himself up that night. Oh well!

The general tenet that "ignorance is no defence" does seem to have taken a bit of a battering though. If a viewer and, I understand, some of the Sky commentary team questioned his drop, why does a golfer who relies on the game for his living not know this basic rule?

I agree that he got a favourable ruling because of who he is!

Would still say The Masters people share responsibility with Woods; unfathomable they don't have walking officials with each group.

Imagine every golfer gets rules confused when they're frazzled - "like a freight train running through the middle of my head", as Springsteen sang (not about golf though!) - and the option of a rules guy close by to defer to is something all other majors have in place.

PS: Joe LaCava shouldn't get a free pass here either . . . . .