Capelle On Golf

The rules officials allow Tiger Woods to play as slowly as he wants to.

Exhibit A came on the fourth hole at Doral in yesterday’s third round of the Cadillac Championship. After blasting his long first putt 18 feet past the cup, Tiger got it in his mind that he was not going to take his bogey and go quietly to the fifth tee. As one of the announcers said, “Tiger hates bogeys,” which is stating the obvious – still, at times he will go to great lengths to avoid making one.

And so he went into his what-should-now-be-famous Tiger Super Grind Mode, a process which takes upwards of 100 seconds (I’ve time it many times), well past the 40 second limit, a rule which appears to be more like a guideline unless a player is on the clock.

I did not time Woods’s routine, but it was painfully obvious that this was one of those occasions when Tiger shows his total disregard for time limit – when it serves his purposes.

Indeed, after taking at least 100+ seconds to prepare for this putt, Tiger was about to pull the trigger. But then a little voice told him that the stripe on his ball was pointing a micro degree off target, so Tiger backed off of his stance, got down, marked his ball, and adjusted the direction of the stripe!

What makes Tiger’s slow play so outrageous is that he is one of the most vocal advocates for enforcing slow play – a position that makes him golf’s biggest hypocrite.

In today’s final round, it will be interesting to see if Woods’ group keeps up with the one ahead of it, and if he registers some super long times in preparing to putt. For the fun of it, I think I will have my stop watch handy as I engage in the Tiger Slow Play Watch. Care to join me?