I believe Tiger's penalty was lost ball.JCA1 said:
The announcers were talking about it. If I understand it correctly, you can only use a provisional if it's OB/not found. But if you find it in bounds and it's just unplayable, you can't use the provisional and have to go back to the tee. Seems like a rule that could use some tweaking.
You aren't describing unplayable correctly. If Tiger's ball was unplayable, he had three options. All have a one stroke penalty.
1 - He can hit from previous spot. In this case, Tiger would never do this and give up yards.
2 - He can drop within two club lengths. Again, it's unlikely he would do this. He was way deep in the woods.
3 - Drop the ball anywhere between his unplayable lie and previous spot (in this case tee box).
If it was unplayable, Tiger would take option #3. He gets 250 yards toward the target. And he can drop it in fairway. (somewhere between unplayable and tee box).