Woods action causes Major controversy

For the second major running Tiger Woods has been the subject of a rules inquiry. But once again no penalty was imposed.

On missing a putt on the ninth hole of his second round yesterday Woods scraped the surface of the green with his putter and after holing out he made an effort to repair the damage he had caused.

The etiquette of golf guidelines state that “players should avoid causing damage to the course … by hitting the head of a club into the ground, whether in anger or for any other reason”.

The rules allow a committee to disqualify a player for a serious breach of that, but Tom Meeks, the United States Golf Association’s senior director of rules and competition, stated that a serious breach is understood to occur only “if a player consistently disregards these guidelines during a round or over a period of time to the detriment of others.”

Another rule prohibits roughening or scraping the putting surface for testing purposes, but the definition of testing requires an intent and Woods was judged not to have done that and no action was taken.

En route to winning the Masters in April officials looked at a video to see if he had stood on the line of a putt in holing out, which again is a breach. But they found the footage inconclusive.

Woods went into today on one over par, three off the lead.