How the cable guy dropped R&A in it

More ridicule was heaped upon

the embattled Royal and Ancient

Golf Club last night after their next

chairman of rules, Alan Holmes,

gave a decision in favour of Tiger

Woods that left even the world No 1

bewildered.

Everyone in professional golf

knows that if your ball comes to

rest against television cables, you

mark the ball with a tee peg, move

the cables and take a free drop.

Woods did not get the chance to

carry out this basic procedure

after carving his drive into the

rough to the left of the 10th

fairway.

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To the astonishment of the

American, referee Holmes —

assigned to his match — declared

the cables an immovable

obstruction. Woods had been

looking at a shot from 167 yards

from a tough lie with the

dangerous Barry Burn in front of

the green.

Able to drop the ball one club

length away and in a better

position, he stuck his shot on to the

green and walked off with a par.

Woods said: "For a rules official to

tell me they are immovable, I've

never seen that before. I thought

they should have been able to

move those. Every time I've played

around the world they have picked

them up, no problem."

Former professional Mark Roe,

commentating for Radio Five Live,

picked them up, no problem, five

minutes after Holmes claimed he

could not.

Roe said: "Roger

Chapman, a rules official on the

European Senior Tour, kicked them

out of the way."

Like Woods, Roe was aghast at the

ruling. He said: "It's perhaps the

easiest rule to knowand what

really disappoints you is that this

guy is going to be the next rules

chairman and he can't even get

that right."

Just to put this into context, Tiger

Woods was playing in Arizona in

1999 when a rules official declared

that a 1,000lb boulder was a

movable obstruction.

Twelve

spectators rolled it out of the

way so that Woods could play on.

Holmes, however, stuck to his guns.

"I couldn't move the cables

appreciably, so that is why I made

my judgment," he said, adding that

it was "ridiculous" to suggest he

made the favourable judgment

because it was Woods.

The furore comes just two weeks

after the Open qualifying fiasco at

Sunningdale, when R&A chairman

Martin Kippax set a pin placement

so ludicrous that play had to be

suspended while a more sensible

hole was cut and those who had

already played the hole did so

again.