Tiger Woods angry over two-shot penalty at BMW Championship.

Tiger Woods has been hit been by his third rules controversy of the season at the BMW Championship – and to his mind this is the most controversial of them all.

The world No 1 will play in the rain-suspended final round on Monday ­ believing he should be just two shots off the pace, not four. Woods was penalised two shots after an eagled-eyed TV pro­ducer spotted Woods’s ball moving when he attempted to move a twig behind his ball while in pine cones in the trees behind the first green.

Woods, however, was adamant that his ball had only oscillated and would not be convinced otherwise when shown the video in the scorer’s hut, despite slow-motion replays that in the opinion of Slugger White, the PGA Tour rules official, showed that it was “pretty clear the ball moved”. Woods made his case strenuously, but was overruled by the officials.

Normally, in rules disputes the word of the player is accepted, but in this case White was certain an infraction had occurred and Woods’ ­second-round score of a 70 was amended. According to Rule 18-2a, if a player causes his ball to move, the penalty is one shot. But because Woods did not return the ball to its original position, he was penalised another shot.

“After seeing the video I thought the ball just oscillated, and I thought that was it,” Woods said. “I thought that was the end of story. But they saw otherwise. We had a very good discussion, and we’ll end it at that ... I was pretty hot because I felt like nothing happened.”

Woods was also penalised on video evidence at both the Abu Dhabi Championship and the Masters. But on those occasions he agreed with the verdict. This time he did not. “They replayed it again and again, and I felt the same way,” he said. “I’d worked my tail off and to go from five behind to seven behind was tough.”

Woods inevitably came in for criticism; not so much for not realising his ball had moved at the time but in refusing to accept the evidence which will seem plain to the vast majority who have seen it and will see it on the Golf Channel and the internet.
There was also an incident at The Players Championship at Sawgrass in May when he was accused by commentators of taking a drop in an advantageous position, although he was cleared by officials.

Steve Stricker came to his defence. “There’s always a fine line between oscillating and moving,” he said. Stricker is one behind Jim Furyk, who holds the 54-hole advantage at 13-under having become the sixth player on the PGA Tour to shoot a 59 on Friday. Heavy rain forced a suspension at lunchtime on Sunday and although it relented enough for a few more hours of play, the heavens opened again to ensure an extra day.

Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood were two of the few who completed their rounds before the hooter sounded. The former shot a 68 for a seven-over total, while the latter ended with a 74 for 12-over. Both will be infuriated not to have finished in the top 30 on the FedEx standings who tee off in the Tour Championship on Thursday.

Culled from The Telegraph.