Woods receives 2-shot penalty, stays in tournament

Tiger Woods received a two-shot penalty this morning after taking an improper drop during the second round of the Masters Tournament. Woods drops to 1-under through 36 holes and will remain in the tournament.

Woods, who finished the second round tied for seventh at 3-under par, caught a bad break when his wedge to the 15th green hit near the bottom of the pin and caromed into the pond.

He dropped behind his original spot, hit his next shot to three feet and walked away with bogey.

The Rules of Golf gave Woods three options for his drop: the designated drop zone, on the line keeping the point where the ball entered the water between his drop point and the pin, or “near as possible” to his original spot.

Woods dismissed the drop area, and he said after the round that he couldn’t see what happened because of the setting sun in his eyes.

“Well, I went down to the drop area, that wasn’t going to be a good spot, because obviously it’s into the grain, it’s really grainy there,” he said. “And it was a little bit wet. So it was muddy and not a good spot to drop.

“So I went back to where I played it from, but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit. And that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back. I felt that that was going to be the right decision to take off four right there. And I did. It worked out perfectly.”