Spitting fine for Woods for incidents in Dubai

DUBAI // Tiger Woods will be fined for spitting on the course during the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates Golf Club, a European PGA Tour official said yesterday.

Television cameras caught the former world No 1 spitting on the Majlis course - once on the fairway and again on the 12th green as he was preparing to make a six-foot putt.

A Tour official released a statement saying that Mike Stewart, the tournament director, reviewed the incident and decided that the American's actions were a breach of the code of conduct. No details were released on the amount or timing of the fine.

It is not the first time Woods has behaved petulantly on the golf course. He has regularly been picked up on microphones using foul language and throwing clubs in disgust over his frustration at being unable to restore his game to its former level.

He struggled throughout the final round on Sunday, which began with him in a large group one stroke behind the leaders. But he rarely threatened after a slow start and he eventually fell back in to a joint 20th finish, extending his winless streak to 17 events over the last 15 months.

The despair of Woods and the other big names seeking the Dubai title contrasted sharply with the delight of Alvaro Quiros, a Spaniard who hits the ball as far as anybody on the tour but does not always hit it in the right direction.

Confidence lifted by a second-place finish in the Qatar Masters a week earlier, Quiros profited from a considerable amount of good fortune - the most timely of his four career holes-in-one and a chipped-in eagle to snatch a single-stroke victory.

Anders Hansen, the Dane who possesses the strongest of temperaments, squandered his chance to bring about a second successive play-off when putts on the 17th and 18th greens slipped just off target. And South Africa's James Kingston agonised over his failure to take a birdie opportunity at the last which would have matched the 11-under-par winning aggregate.

Quiros's effort left Rory McIlroy, the 2009 champion and Lee Westwood, the world No 1 and 2009 Dubai World Championship winner, lamenting what might have been, along with a group of other famous names who knocked on the door to the title but failed to go through it.

wjohnson@thenational.ae