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Slow-motion, high definition television replays
showed Woods' club making contact with the ball at least twice
as he scooped it out of a bush on the final hole at Albany in
the Bahamas.
Under a rule implemented last year, however, a penalty is not
assessed if such an infraction is visible only in slow motion
replays.
"In slow motion I did hit it twice but in real time I didn't
feel that at all," Woods told reporters after shooting 69 to
trail second-round leaders Jon Rahm and Henrik Stenson by eight
strokes.
Rules official Mark Russell said the incident had been reviewed
and that Woods, who double-bogeyed the hole, was in the clear.
Had the incident occurred before April 2017, Woods would have
received a one-stroke penalty.
That was when the game's governing bodies, the U.S. Golf
Association and the Royal & Ancient, changed a rule in response
to improvements in video technology that were leading to
penalties that in previous eras would have been avoided.
"If the committee concludes that such facts could not reasonably
have been seen with the naked eye and the player was not
otherwise aware of the potential breach, the player will be
deemed not to have breached the rules, even when video
technology shows otherwise," the rule said.
From Jan. 1, when major revisions of the rule book will be
implemented, there will be no penalty for accidentally hitting a
ball more than once on a single stroke.
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by
Peter Rutherford)
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