Tiger Woods Avoids Penalty After ‘Scooping’ Ball

Were this a major week, Tiger Woods may have been the centre of a huge rules controversy.

That’s because the 14-time major winner managed to avoid a penalty after scooping his ball out of a bush on the final hole during the second round of the Hero World Challenge.

Woods found himself down the right of the finishing hole with a tricky lie in a bush, needing to kneel down and grip down the shaft to chip it out.

He took a short and quick swipe at the ball and managed to get it back towards the fairway, although slow motion cameras revealed that the ball had stayed on the face for some time.

Watch the incident below –

The 14-time major winner got away without penalty due to not knowing he had double-hit or scooped the ball at the time.

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“I didn’t feel like I violated any rules,” Woods said after his round.

“I was trying to play a shot but the rules committee said they may have been a violation. I didn’t feel like I hit it twice but under super slow-mo you could see I made contact twice.”

The PGA Tour’s vice president of rules and competitions Mark Russell said, “We had to look at high-speed, slow-motion video to determine that the ball probably did stay on the clubface a little too long. But there was no way he could’ve known that.

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“Basically, if the player didn’t know he did that [double-hit it] and the only way you can tell is by using this type of slow-motion technology, he’s exempt from the rules, so there’s no penalty there.”

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Coincidentally, from 1st Jan 2019, double-hits will count as ‘one stroke’, due to the new golf rules instead of two.

He eventually double-bogeyed the 18th and is two under after 36 holes.

Jon Rahm and Henrik Stenson share the halfway lead at 10 under after a bogey-free nine under par 63 from Rahm and a 66 from Stenson.

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