In golf, and almost no other sport, interactive, real-time communication between armchair television viewers and referees supervising the competition routinely changes rulings and alters the outcomes of tournaments.

This collaboration of livingroom second-guessers and rules officials is an almost weekly occurrence on the pro golf tours. On Saturday, it embroiled the Masters, one of golf’s biggest events, in a controversy that involved the game’s most celebrated player, Tiger Woods.

Woods, who had been three strokes off the lead, was assessed a two-stroke penalty on Saturday for hitting from the wrong spot on Friday, a violation first flagged by a television viewer. Woods could have been disqualified but officials instead invoked a rarely applied two-year-old rule that spares offending players in exceptional cases.

The catalyst for the rules controversy began with a short and simple text message.

A friend of a rules official saw something on television that looked improper – an illegal drop by Woods after his ball plunked into a pond at the 15th hole. The claim was brought before the Masters rules committee, which decided there was no violation.

Then, an hour later, Woods inadvertently implicated himself, saying he had taken two steps back before dropping his ball, which was not permitted.

Removing Woods from the Masters could have ruined television ratings and deprived the world’s top-ranked player of a chance to win his 15th Major championship.

Masters officials said neither Woods’s popularity nor his pursuit of history was a factor in their ruling and added hundreds of viewers contacted the club with suspected rules infractions. “There are a lot of people out there that know a lot about the rules . . .” said Fred Ridley, Masters chairman of competition committees.

Defending Masters champion, Bubba Watson, said PGA Tour players were approached about viewer-generated rules investigations with such frequency it was shrugged off in the players’ lockerroom.

“Our sport is the only one you’d ever allow viewers to do that,” Watson said. “They’re definitely not calling about missed balls and strikes during a baseball game or if someone’s getting away with holding during a football game.

"Maybe it's because our sport is so slow, people have time to call."
New York Times Service