Tiger at it again !!

What rules ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5SL57mef4E

this is real grassy knoll stuff now. his playing partner said the drop was ok and thats good enough for me. and i'm sure Tiger and Joe were extra careful after the masters incident.

I think he's spot on, that's the way they called it at the time and what the sh1t-stirrer doesn't say is that, even after Woods was on the green, Miller expressed further reservations - see comments on the ballwasher thread.

They didn't show the video from the tee again as if they were anxious not to open up a can of worms which could backfire on the network.

Unfortunately the camera angle doesn't show the exact line and we have to watch it through the lens of Rolfing's vision, which frankly is unequivocal until he's offered the opportunity to start equivocating based on Wittenberg's testimony.

Another wrinkle is the straightahead speed with which Tiger and Joe marched to their conclusion as to where the ball crossed land; no looking around for an official, no re-verifying with Casey where the exact spot was, just hell-bent on getting down there, hitting his shot and getting out of jail before anyone called in!

As it happens, it's unlikely it affected his score on the hole, but it certainly could have done.

As Tiger himself says, "Rules are rules", and, in my view, he's bent another one, if not deliberately broken it.

Looks like he's spot on. Shocking drop.

Tiger was at it. He knew the shot he hit and he tried and succeeded to get a good call from his playing partner. A bit like his personnel life, it's only wrong if you get caught and he got caught.

A real shame. He's playing great and I'm really wanting to give him my full support but he's losing his credibility in my eyes.

I already asked this question earlier, but if the committee had spoken to him after his round and asked "tiger, were you trying to drop the ball as close as you could to the first shot as required by the rules" I'm pretty sure the reply would have been "eh, yes I was". He would then have not got the 2 shot penalty and would probably have won the masters. A bit harsh maybe but it's clear now it's all about the "W".

For starters I dont take anything a person like miller says.

If Tiger and his playing partner (wittenberg) establish it crossed where they think it crossed to the best of their abilities then what else can you ask for?

A rules official, an announcer, a scorer, a caddie and so on, all failed to speak up at the time. No doubt in almost all cases of establishing where a ball crossed the hazard golfers get it wrong.

It seems the tiger woods haters can't let go of the wonderful period they enjoyed when he didn't win anything.

Especially the odd balls on here who end up with moist knickers every time a european makes a fleeting appearance in the top ten of an important leaderboard.

Spot on Mac, now watch as even more mindless drivel spewes forth in retaliation. All because you dared to state the truth.

I wonder if a professional golfer (Wittenberg in this case), who is about to hit a tee-shot on a tough hole, really follows the path of his playing partner's tee-shot.

Agree the overhead shot isn't conclusive due to the angle/perspective of the camera man - but the walking commentators words are more interesting. Seems that there is quite a high chance that a large portion of scalwaggery has been consumed in one mouthful right under everyone's noses.

a small observation- when Tiger hit the shot, he looked at it as if it was ok then after a few seconds turned away in disgust. if it was over water from the start he probably would of let go of the club or dropped an F bomb sooner. the turn away might explain why he wasnt sure where it crossed the hazard, he seemed to do this before the ball hit the water.

That's pretty tenuous Inco, but not much more so than some other observations made on here.

For what it's worth in my view, Tiger took a bad drop, but can't really be deemed to have broken any rules - follow the logic here....

I think the video shows the ball was over water from much futher back than where he dropped, so it's a bad drop IMHO.

However, we can't know that he knew where the ball crossed, so at this point he has to have the benefit of the doubt on the ignorance front.

Since he doesn't know where the ball crossed, the rules require him to ask his playing partner for his view, and he did.

He then dropped where his playing partner indicated, so he hasn't broken any rules.

We can speculate all we want on whether he knew where the ball really crossed or not, whether Wittenberg crumpled under Tiger's aura, if he'd called in a rules official would he have got a different drop etc, etc &c., but that counts for nothing from the rules perspective - he did the minimum the rules required him to.

Jesus this is all getting pretty pathetic. I'm sure a lot of balls went into the water last week and not a single one of them will have been dropped exactly where it should have been unless there is a designated dropping area.
Talk about making a mountain out of a barely existent molehill.

agreed, straw clutching and barrel scraping stuff.

Nine chins won, no arguments.

Agreed Dig, unlikely many post splash balls were exactly where they should have been and it's that grey area of opinion/interpretation that is the problem.

DZ is probably the only way out of this to tighten the rules up and avoid the quagmire of interpretation (and might help to speed it up a tiny bit too).

The "it" that Tiger appears to be at seems merely to be winning again.

The drop occurring in seemingly the wrong place happens ALL the time!
Sad as i am, i am forever rewinding it to point out to my mrs how far out the are compared to the replays (she loves it, not!).
I guess the player can only do his best. No one ever makes a big deal of it.........

super_realist wrote:agreed, straw clutching and barrel scraping stuff.

Nine chins won, no arguments.

Wow, you really have turned the corner. That is surely the voice of reason regarding tigers drop.

I also think diggers nails the point as well.

I probably took a wrong drop at the weekend! There, I've admitted it. The ball was travelling towards a pond on the right, unbeknowst to me there was another pond beyond the one I could see. We did not find the ball, but my opponent (it was match play) allowed me to drop between the two hazards (a distance of maybe 15 yards). I've no idea which hazard the ball was in and neither had anybody else. If only I'd had the benefit of a TV replay!

McLaren wrote:

super_realist wrote:agreed, straw clutching and barrel scraping stuff.

Nine chins won, no arguments.

Wow, you really have turned the corner. That is surely the voice of reason regarding tigers drop.

I also think diggers nails the point as well.

I've no time for these people phoning in millimetric errors. I have to say golfers, despite being one myself are pretty ghastly people, particularly the old farts with blazers and slacks.

I hope you reported this to the committee, golfermartin.

DQ for both of you......LOL

Hard to tell from the video. If Wittenberg thought it was incorrect, he should have said so. He didn't so de facto it's OK.

Looks a bit suss to me but I don't suppose TW and Wittenberg had access to video and neither of them may have been paying enough attention to the ball flight. Given the sportsman that TW is, any benefit of the doubt will undoubtedly have been taken.

super_realist wrote:I've no time for these people phoning in millimetric errors. I have to say golfers, despite being one myself are pretty ghastly people, particularly the old farts with blazers and slacks.

Agreed, you can only expect accuracy to within a few yards in most red stake situations.

There is a bit of a difference if the chosen drop spot is - for example - around 150 yards away from the crossing point though

If you watch the video, Tiger turns away long before the ball lands in the water, so how can he tell where it crossed the hazard ????

So explain the drop location ?

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golftalkcentral/report-marshals-didnt-give-woods-ok-to-play/

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/golf-devil-ball-golf/did-tiger-woods-improper-drop-en-route-players-124525467.html

From the blimp angle it looks like tiger and casey got it about right. Thanks for clearing this up kwini.

Mac,
I just listened to Paul Azinger's weekly podcast and, apart from Kelly Tilghman, there aren't many TV people further up Tiger's arse than Zinger.

Among the things he said:
Re #2 on Saturday: Clearly Tiger distracted him and he should have apologized to Sergio, but chose not to. Instead of taking the moral high road he responded by taking a cheap shot at Sergio "he's always complaining".
Turns out in hindsight that evidence suggests Tiger lied about getting the go-ahead from marshalls.

Re #14: Like the rest of us, he couldn't say definitively whether it was a good drop or not, but was surprised that, given Rolfing's initial-reaction-commentary and Johnny Miller's comments, NBC didn't show it "over and over again".
My take on it is that Tiger knew he was possibly getting away with something; he scuttled down the fairway like a teenage shop-lifter, looking straight ahead, no communication except shouts on placement to Wittenberg and caddie. But NBC could have more definitively proved Tiger innocent, and the fact they didn't raises suspicions in my mind.

But look, that's three issues of rules or gamesmanship in six rounds. Coincidence or part of a serial behaviour, not unlike "character" traits we've seen in other aspects of his life.

I certainly give him the benefit of the doubt at Augusta, but a little more transparency and humility would have done him the world of good at TPC.

Why not congratulate tiger for a nice bit of gamesmanship which won him the event? does sergio go for the pin on 17 without the tiger feud?

kwinigolfer wrote:

But look, that's three issues of rules or gamesmanship in six rounds. Coincidence or part of a serial behaviour, not unlike "character" traits we've seen in other aspects of his life.

He's being high profile golf for the best part of 20 years. How many issues re rules or gamesmanship have we had in that time ? Isn't that what we should be judging him on.

Careful Digs, Mac,
Your narrative is shifting a bit!!

How so Kwini ?

http://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-images-of-tiger-woods-controversail-drop-2013-5

Blimey incontinentia, are you providing evidence for the prosecution??!!

heh heh, not really kwini but good to see all sides of the argument!

Just to throw more gas on the fire... I see that the course marshals are denying that they told Tiger that Garcia already hit that controversial shot at the Players, as TW told reporters afterwards so convincingly. Gamesmanship at it's very best from Tont lately...

EDIT: ooops, now I see kwini posted this already...

princedracula wrote:Just to throw more gas on the fire... I see that the course marshals are denying that they told Tiger that Garcia already hit that controversial shot at the Players, as TW told reporters afterwards so convincingly. Gamesmanship at it's very best from Tont lately...

EDIT: ooops, now I see kwini posted this already...

Or maybe just a misunderstanding ?
Do you really think someone as focused as Woods stands there thinking when I pull this club there will be a huge roar and it will put that sulky little prat off.
I just don't see it.

The tinfoil hat brigade are out.

Possibly, but I wouldn't downplay his range of abilities that much... I certainly think Tiger is well capable of being very focused and very shrewd at the same time... and my own feeling is that in both these situations at the Players he combined these two skills beautifully....

Digs,
Why would he then lie about the marshalls instead of just apologizing graciously?
Focus, I suppose?
I think he's the most calculating sports person of the modern (American) era, for better - that's his genius - and, sometimes, for worse.

kwinigolfer wrote:Blimey incontinentia, are you providing evidence for the prosecution??!!

Looking at that last picture of where the ball landed in the water + where it lands after the skip I think his drop was pretty good.
If you draw a straight line through those 2 points the crossing point would be close to where he dropped it

I just think its implausible that Woods would try to pull a fast one after what happened at augusta, and coming down the stretch in a huge tournament in front of thousands of witnesses. How dumb would he have to be?!

It was obvious Tiger lied about the marshalls telling him to play as soon as he said it. If you watch the footage, after he pulls the club and the crowd start cheering he actually gestures over to Garcia as if to say 'ssh he's playing'. He knew Sergio hadn't hit.
Why he didn't just say he tried to quieten them down I've no idea!

I think Azinger is on the money.

Look at the pictures from the blimp and its very unlikely the ball crossed the hazard after the first 100 yards. The player would know for sure, especially a pro. Many other players would have dropped way back unless they were 100%. To me, the three events and his reaction to then tells us a lot about the man.

I was a huge fan and he had my support during the come back, but I feel I'm now seeing what others saw way back. What a shame as we all want heroes, but that's another one gone for me. Maybe I'm just getting too synical with old age.

Further to my last post, see 16 seconds in on this clip

https://youtu.be/6VzGtB6Zo4w

MustPuttBetter wrote:Further to my last post, see 16 seconds in on this clip

https://youtu.be/6VzGtB6Zo4w

I have no clue what Garcia is complaining about though. He had more then 5 seconds before he started his swing when Tiger got his club. Tiger stops mid swing often when distracted. You'd think 5 seconds would be enough for Garcia to step away and reload.

McLaren wrote:For starters I dont take anything a person like miller says.

If Tiger and his playing partner (wittenberg) establish it crossed where they think it crossed to the best of their abilities then what else can you ask for?

A rules official, an announcer, a scorer, a caddie and so on, all failed to speak up at the time. No doubt in almost all cases of establishing where a ball crossed the hazard golfers get it wrong.

It seems the tiger woods haters can't let go of the wonderful period they enjoyed when he didn't win anything.

Especially the odd balls on here who end up with moist knickers every time a european makes a fleeting appearance in the top ten of an important leaderboard.

This.

On shot tracker the ball crossed within about ten yards of where Tiger played his ball, you can never know for certain the exact point but he did everything by the book and won the tournament.

who thinks kwini needs to do a TW appreciation thread?

I think I will incontinentia,
A few of the Ballwasher Notes at any rate.
Hope you won't be disappointed.

And . . . . you don't see me criticise him too much on there.

kwinigolfer wrote:I think I will incontinentia,
A few of the Ballwasher Notes at any rate.
Hope you won't be disappointed.

And . . . . you don't see me criticise him too much on there.

Groan! Paving the way for more groundless cynical sideswipes hidden in a screenshot full of much ado about nothing.

incontinentia wrote:who thinks kwini needs to do a TW appreciation thread?

Strange things can happen.

AlciG wrote:

MustPuttBetter wrote:Further to my last post, see 16 seconds in on this clip

https://youtu.be/6VzGtB6Zo4w

I have no clue what Garcia is complaining about though. He had more then 5 seconds before he started his swing when Tiger got his club. Tiger stops mid swing often when distracted. You'd think 5 seconds would be enough for Garcia to step away and reload.

Maybe but then we don't know the level of noise where Garcia was etc. maybe it was only loud enough for him to hear or be bothered by half way through his backswing, who knows. One thing for sure is Tiger has told some porkies