AUGUSTA — World number one golfer Tiger Woods made two significant moves on Saturday at the Masters — one to stay in the tournament, the other to stay in the hunt.
Reuters
A day filled with high drama before a shot was struck at Augusta National, ended with Brandt Snedeker and Angel Cabrera tied for the lead and Woods only four shots back. For a few tense hours in the morning, it was not clear if Woods was going to get a chance to play. Masters officials discovered late Friday night that Woods had taken a bad drop in the second round and should have added two shots to his score.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been disqualified for signing an incorrect card.
Officials took the blame for not alerting Woods to a potential problem — they found nothing wrong at first glance before he signed — and kept him in the tournament with two shots added to his score. Woods was covered under a two-year-old rule that prevents (disqualifications) DQs when a violation is reported by television viewers.
“It certainly was a distraction early,” Woods said after three birdies on his last seven holes for a 70. “It happens, and you move on. I was ready to play come game time.”
So was Snedeker.
He’s been building toward a moment like this for the last year, and he seized his chance on a glorious afternoon with a bogey-free round of 3-under 69.
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After opening with 12 pars, he birdied both the par 5s and stuffed his tee shot to four feet for birdie on the par-3 16th to take the lead.
Cabrera joined him at 7-under 209 with a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole, capping off a round in which he twice made bogey on the par 5s.
Woods inadvertently implicated himself Friday during his post-round interview by saying he went back a few yards by design.
Because he saw no problem at first with the drop and let Woods sign his card without talking to him, Fred Ridley, head of the Masters competition committee, said it would have been “grossly unfair to Tiger to have disqualified him”. He said the notion of a DQ was “not even on the table”.
In a bizarre twist, it was a television viewer’s phone call that initiated the penalty and ultimately spared the world’s No 1 player.
