Open galleries will be free to have their say about Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods has always described St Andrews as one of his favourite places in the world of golf, yet he can expect no special treatment when he attempts in July to add to the two Open Championships he has won there.
Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R&A, which organises and runs the Open, said yesterday that although spectators will be expected to show respect to the players, they were entitled to express their views.
There has been speculation that Woods might be heckled after revelations about his private life, and Dawson admitted there was little he could do to prevent it. “We’re not a police state,” he said. “People can say what they like.”
Woods has yet to confirm that he will help to celebrate the championship’s 150th year, but it is difficult, now that he has returned to the game after five months away, to think of the oldest of the majors going ahead without him.
While the R&A is keen not to be heavy-handed over security, Dawson pointed out that bad behaviour of spectators would not be tolerated. “If they start putting players off, we’ll have something to say about it,” he said at St Andrews. “They are asked to stop and if they don’t, they are asked to leave.”
Asked if he expected a negative reaction to Woods, whose extra-marital affairs have battered his public image, Dawson took heart from what happened at the Masters three weeks ago. “I don’t think I do, although I could be badly wrong,” he said. “The Augusta fans are people just like everybody else and I think there was genuine relief that Tiger was back. I think the reaction to him was measured. It wasn’t enthusiastic but it wasn’t hugely negative, either. I expect something similar here.
“I remain the biggest fan of his golf game that there could possibly be. I’m just very sad at what has happened and I’m sure that he is, too. I don’t know anybody who saw this coming. It was a great shock to all of us in golf. Let’s hope he returns a stronger person.”
Unlike Billy Payne, the chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, who criticised Woods, Dawson is not going to express disapproval in public. However, as one of the guardians of the game, he remarked that Woods’s on-course behaviour needs cleaning up. “It had deteriorated,” he said. “No one who has a care for the etiquette of the game could be happy with that and I’m sure Tiger, when he looks at the pictures, isn’t happy with it.
“I thought Billy’s comments were measured and well crafted. He had the disadvantage of being [Tiger’s] first event back.
“The Masters had a major problem in having no idea what to expect. If the Open had been his first back, we’d have been scratching our heads.”
As yet prize money has not been set for this year’s championship and will be dependent, among other things, on the prevailing exchange rates nearer the time. Stewart Cink, the 2009 champion, won £750,000 and Dawson said that the prospect of a £1 million first prize was on the horizon, “but not this year”.
Source:The Times