Tiger Woods missed the fairway on 5th hole at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship today. As you can see, these were not ideal golf conditions. So Tiger invited another golfer – Martin Kaymer – to come inspect the lie. Tiger thought the ball was embedded and deserved a drop. Kaymer concurred.

So Tiger took his drop, hit the ball back into more golf-able conditions and continued on with his round. At the 11th hole, course officials informed Tiger that he had committed a rules violation. As you can see, Tiger’s shot after the drop on the 5th kicked up quite a bit of dirty / dusty particulates. Well, a couple fans approached officials and ratted on Tiger, saying he shouldn’t have been allowed a drop because the area was “sandy.” Tiger was assessed a two-stroke penalty which dropped his score from +1 to +3, causing him to miss the cut.

Tiger didn’t say much about the ruling after the round, but he did leave officials with this, per Guyism:

“No, that’s why I called Martin over, to make sure we thought it was embedded. So I had a player come over and verify it and um, evidently I broke a rule.”

If you’re keeping track at home, this week, Tiger is NOT back. Got that? Tiger Woods is NOT back.

[Golf Channel, Getty]