Tiger Woods Fined For Criticizing Tournament Official

They are in the FINAL GROUP, it's not like they are holding up play. Woods was absolutely correct to critisize the official. If I were CBS, I'd pay the fine for Tiger, that official needs to keep his whistle in his pocket and let the players battle it out without distraction. The PGA should heed these comments and perhaps ford some provision for limited time extention in situations such as this. Whether or not it actually affected Harrington's play is unimportant. The fact that making that decision COULD affect the outcome is. And for the record, any PGA purists out there that believe it's the right thing to do because it protects the integrity of the game and rules need to take thier right hand and grab thier left ear, take thier left hand and grab thier right ear..and pull thier head out of thier you know what.... 

I am glad Tiger made the comment (and I am sure he knew there would be a fined). Harrington admitted he rushed the shots - but also commented that the last group should not get special treatement. This, to me, displays the character of these 2 players and of the fame of Golf.

Unbelievable!  It is one thing receiving strokes for slow play but for a player to receive a fine for saying something critical about the rule is another.  In what other sport (or free country for that matter) are people fined for making critical comments?  Criticism and disagreement occurs in the hopes that positive change will come from it.  Some of the rules of golf are ridiculous and appear to have been adopted in order for poorer players to have a better chance of beating superior players, by simply being aware of the myriad of rules and calling stroke penalties on their opponents.  Additionally we are seeing some of these obscure rules affect the outcome of professional tour events.  As a viewer and supporter of professional golf, I want to see the best player win, not lose because they received penalty strokes because the "wind" moved their ball 1/4 of an inch after they addressed it!  It appears that "The Rules of Golf" are in serious need of a makeover.

Without a doubt, another example of why golf is struggling for the hearts of fans.  Here is a great battle and the rules officials are too stupid to recognize that the battle is far more important than the time issue.  Ever since Finchem took over, golf has struggled - it is that simple.  This guy has no idea what fans want, so the game suffers.  As long as they continue to choke all the fun and excitement from the game, it will fall somewhere behind volleyball as a TV sport.

This incident was obviously orchestrated by CBS.  The day before, (Saturday) the announcers were counting down the seconds until they would go off the air, then one of them said "We've gotten a reprieve from the "Governor" to stay on long enough to see the end of the match".  They didn't want that to happen again so they put pressure on someone to speed things up.  Television is supposed to be there as an OBSERVER, and when their schedule becomes more important than the outcome of a superb and exciting match, then they are affecting the play and THEY should be fined.

Sure applaud Tiger for standing up for his opponent. On the other hand though time is a part of the game and some of these guys take WAAAAAAYYY to long IE Jim Furyk and then juice his 5ft. putt anyways.

Good on Tiger. Heaven help us if we can't disagree with sporting officials. For Karen Walkers information, the games of Rugby and Rugby League, are governed by old farts in Engalnd but played world wide. In both of these codes, public criticism of match officials by players, coaches or other team officials will result in hefty fines for the individuals and the teams. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars here.