Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency
Tiger Woods taking a drop after hitting into the water on the 15th hole of the second round of the Masters.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — 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 living room second-guessers and rules officials is an almost weekly occurrence. On Saturday, it embroiled the Masters, golf's biggest event, 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 Saturday for hitting from the wrong spot on Friday, a violation first flagged by a television viewer. Woods could have been disqualified from the Masters, 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.
Masters officials would not reveal the identity of the texter, but the claim was brought before the Masters rules committee, which decided there was no violation. Then, about an hour later, Woods inadvertently implicated himself, saying that before dropping the ball he had taken two steps back, which was not permitted under the circumstances.
The process for Saturday's ruling might have been especially delicate; removing Woods from the Masters could have ruined TV ratings and deprived the world's top-ranked player of his best chance in several years to win his 15th major championship.
But Masters officials said neither Woods's popularity nor his pursuit of history was a factor. They had absolved him of wrongdoing on Friday; a day later, they said they could not impose the harsh penalty that goes with signing an incorrect scorecard — disqualification — because their earlier decision mitigated his culpability.
Unheard-of in other sports, communication between viewers and tournament officials happens nearly every week on the professional golf tours.
At the Masters, officials said hundreds of viewers contacted the club with suspected rules infractions. Most often, they call the club, whose phone number is easy to find on the Internet.
"There are a lot of people out there that know a lot about the rules, or think they know a lot about the rules," said Fred Ridley, the Masters chairman for competition committees. "It creates more work for us, but we do look at every one of these."
The defending Masters champion, Bubba Watson, said Saturday that PGA Tour players were approached about viewer-generated rules investigations so frequency it was shrugged off in the players' locker room.
"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."
Asked why it happens in golf, Watson answered, "Maybe it's because our sport is so slow, people have time to call."
Television viewers also routinely have more than one phone number to call. Many try contacting the network broadcasting the event. Many go directly to the United States Golf Association because it oversees the rules of golf in this country. And others contact the PGA Tour itself, whose phone number is easily found.
"They must have a lot of time on their hands," Watson said. "Because I don't know the phone number to call, and I'm playing in the golf tournament."
At Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters, any rules infraction phone call coming through the main switchboard is sent to the tournament headquarters office.
The details of the call are recorded and documented with the specifics of the suspected violation scrupulously noted and then passed on to the Masters rules committee. Each case is investigated, which can involve interviewing the player or players involved, until the situation is resolved as groundless or worthy of a penalty. "The players are under a microscope, and people watch their golf closely," Ridley said. "And when they contact us, we make a determination."
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