One thing I think people are missing: Tiger was assessed the penalty mainly because the interview after the round revealed to the Rules commitee Tiger's INTENTIONS. That is, he said he tried to drop a yard or two back. The committee had already reviewed the video, and if you look at the video you can see he is at most 2 or 3 feet behind the location from which he played his original shot. The visual evidence is therefore NOT damning in this case, and if Tiger hadn't done a post-round interview there wouldn't have even been a penalty. This is all exacerbated by the fact that the drop rule is LESS CLEAR about where one is allowed to drop than most other rules in golf: the rule states to drop "as near as possible" to the original location, whereas most of the time when we drop near a spot we get one clublength. And from the video Tiger looks to be within one clublength of his original location.
My understanding of the rules committee's on-air explanation was that Tiger was not DQ'd because the committee itself had already looked at the video and saw that there was no infraction. If the committee had asked Tiger about the drop before he signed, they could have assessed the penalty right then, and there would be no question of a DQ. Since the committee did not ask him (because they were certain there was no penalty) then they basically created the conditions under which he could be DQ'd.
Therefore: if ever there was a reason to invoke this new rule 33 and not DQ someone, this seems like the case.
And one also has to ask: how many infractions would be found if every single player had every single drop reviewed on video? I've gone back and looked at Furyk's drop on 15 on Friday and he was NOWHERE near the line formed between the point his ball crossed into the hazard and the pin. Leishman's drop on number 10 also looked VERY questionable, as the line between were he dropped his ball and the flag just barely touched the far right margin of the hazard, but his shot from the rough crossed much closer to the middle of the hazard. If SOME drops are viewed through a microscope AFTER play is over and a card is signed, while other drops aren't looked at at all, then it makes sense to protect players with this new rule 33.
I say this as someone who once disqualified himself in a major high school tournament. Faldo would be proud of me, I guess. But in Faldo's day they didn't have HD video of every move on the course, and when a question came up, players would often interpret the rules themselves (without a rules official) and move on.
My understanding of the rules committee's on-air explanation was that Tiger was not DQ'd because the committee itself had already looked at the video and saw that there was no infraction. If the committee had asked Tiger about the drop before he signed, they could have assessed the penalty right then, and there would be no question of a DQ. Since the committee did not ask him (because they were certain there was no penalty) then they basically created the conditions under which he could be DQ'd.
Therefore: if ever there was a reason to invoke this new rule 33 and not DQ someone, this seems like the case.
And one also has to ask: how many infractions would be found if every single player had every single drop reviewed on video? I've gone back and looked at Furyk's drop on 15 on Friday and he was NOWHERE near the line formed between the point his ball crossed into the hazard and the pin. Leishman's drop on number 10 also looked VERY questionable, as the line between were he dropped his ball and the flag just barely touched the far right margin of the hazard, but his shot from the rough crossed much closer to the middle of the hazard. If SOME drops are viewed through a microscope AFTER play is over and a card is signed, while other drops aren't looked at at all, then it makes sense to protect players with this new rule 33.
I say this as someone who once disqualified himself in a major high school tournament. Faldo would be proud of me, I guess. But in Faldo's day they didn't have HD video of every move on the course, and when a question came up, players would often interpret the rules themselves (without a rules official) and move on.
