'I could have disqualified Tiger Woods from the Masters but one phone call saved him'

could have been disqualified during in 2013 after inadvertently revealing he had taken an improper drop. But he was allowed to continue by rules chief Fred Ridley after former official David Eger called up tournament bosses to offer the blockbuster star a reprieve.

Woods is one of the greatest golfers to ever play the sport and had already won 14 of his by the time he turned up at the 2013 Masters in search of victory. He enjoyed a decent start to the tournament and found himself tied for the lead during the latter stages of his second round. But disaster struck on the 15th hole after his approach shot cannoned back off the flag and entered the water.

Woods decided to take a penalty drop from where he had played his initial shot and recorded a bogey six. But he then explained during his post-round interview with ESPN that he had played the shot "two yards back" from where the ball had originally been.

And Eger was quick to spot that Woods should have in fact carded an eight instead of a six due to the bad drop.

"I played it back three or four times [after watching the incident on television] before I made a call," Eger explained a number of years later.

"I'm looking at something knowing there's no divot hole when he played the [original] shot. And then there was a divot hole when he dropped. I could see that.

"And that's why I kept replaying it to make sure. I hesitated on calling simply because I knew how controversial it was going to be.

"If it would have been Joe Schmo, I would have called in too. It didn't matter. I was trying to save the player from being disqualified."

Ridley initially deemed that Woods had nothing wrong and didn't mention the incident in the scoring tent. But the rules committee later took a closer look and summoned the player after agreeing that he had indeed broken the rules.

Golfers could be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard but were able to avoid the sanction if they didn't have the proper information available when they signed their scorecard.

And the committee opted to give Woods a two-stroke penalty instead, with Ridley explaining at the time: "Tiger was entitled to have the benefit of that decision when he signed his scorecard.

"And to me it would have been grossly unfair to Tiger to have disqualified him after our committee had made that decision [not to tell him]."