Tiger Woods could have benefited from new rule

Golf’s newest rule change comes a little too late for Tiger Woods.

The U.S. Golf Assn. -- along with its British partner, the R&A -- has decided that a ball at rest “will not be deemed to have moved if that movement was not reasonably discernible to the naked eye at the time.”

In other words, tournament officials cannot use high-def, super slo-mo video to determine if a ball moved as a player picked at adjacent twigs or other debris.

Woods was penalized two strokes at the BMW Championship in September after he removed loose impediments from around his ball. Woods insisted that the ball merely oscillated.

The penalty came to light only after a video crew looked at a replay.

“There needs to be a discussion obviously where is that time limit?” Woods said later. “Where is that line of demarcation?”

Issuing a total of 87 changes in their “Decisions on the Rules of Golf,” the USGA and R&A stopped short of imposing any such time restrictions but agreed that high-tech scrutinizing should go only so far.

Woods was involved with a number of rules violations in 2013. That led Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee to insinuate in a Golf.com column that the world’s top-ranked player had cheated.

After criticism from Woods and other top players, Chamblee subsequently resigned his online column but remained with the network.

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