Tiger Woods has been fined by the PGA after criticizing officials Sunday following the 2009 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Tiger was critical of a rule that penalized competitor Padraig Harrington for taking too much time to hit from the rough and then off the green.

From the Examiner:

The wording of the rule is:

“It is an obligation of membership to refrain from comments to the news media that unreasonably attack or disparage tournaments, sponsors, fellow members, players or PGA Tour.”

Tiger’s words were reported as:

“Like I was telling him out there, ‘I’m sorry that John (the course official) got in the way of a great battle,’ because it was such a great battle for 16 holes,” Woods said. “We’re going at it, head-to-head, and unfortunately that happened. Paddy and I will definitely do it again.”

“I don’t think that Paddy would have hit the pitch shot that way if he was able to take his time, look at it, analyze it,” Woods said. “But he was on the clock, had to get up there quickly and hit it.”

What Tiger said could hardly be viewed as an unreasonable attack on the PGA Tour. He might have taken a pot shot at the course official, but that doesn’t seem worth a fine.

It’s amazing that the PGA Tour would fine Tiger for those comments, yet not after he lays down a barrage of curse words on national television following a bad shot. Seems kind of ridiculous if you ask me.

But what’s even more ridiculous is not allowing golfers to analyze their shots because the TV networks want to fit everything within a certain broadcast window. After all, this is golf – not football. Golfers should be allowed to approach their shots without being rushed in fear of breaking some pointless rule.

Update: The PGA is reporting that Tiger Woods has not been fined and that the originial report was erroneous.