Woods: I played by the rules

Tiger Woods never contemplated withdrawing from the Masters amid controversy over a two-shot penalty for taking an incorrect drop during his second round.

Woods was only given the penalty on Saturday morning, more than 12 hours after he had signed for a 71 that left him three shots off the lead.

That led three-time Masters champion Nick Faldo to call for Woods to gain "massive brownie points" by admitting he had broken the rules and disqualify himself, but it then emerged that tournament officials had reviewed the incident while Woods was playing the 18th hole and decided he had done nothing wrong.

And under a recently revised rule, the world number one could be given a two-shot penalty instead of being disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.

"I got a text from Steiny (agent Mark Steinberg) this morning saying 'Call me,'. It's never a good thing when that happens," said Woods, who subsequently carded a third-round 70 to finish three under par.

"They called me in, I got a two-shot penalty, time to play. I made a mistake, I took an improper drop and I got the penalty."

Asked if he thought of withdrawing, Woods said: "No. Under the rules of golf I am abiding by the rules. They made the determination that nothing had happened yesterday and after what I said, things changed."

That was a reference to his comment that he had gone "two yards further back" from where he hit his original shot after seeing it clatter into the pin and bounce back into the water. Under rule 26-1a, he was obliged to drop "as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played."

Woods added: "I wasn't even really thinking. I was still a little ticked at what happened, and I was just trying to figure, okay, I need to take some yardage off this shot, and that's all I was thinking about was trying to make sure I took some yardage off of it, and evidently, it was pretty obvious, I didn't drop in the right spot."

Tournament officials insisted Woods had not received preferential treatment and the ruling was a "good decision" supported by the game's governing bodies.