AUGUSTA, GA. – At the Masters on Friday, Tiger Woods was spared the exposure of more airplane banners chiding him for his recent behavior.

The FAA grounded the light airplane that had dragged banners across the sky above Augusta National.

On Thursday, those banners highlighted Woods’ sexual escapades with slogans like:

“Sex Addict? Yeah. Sure. Me Too.”

“Tiger, Did You Mean Bootyism?”

Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a minor mechanical problem kept the airplane grounded on Friday.

During his radio program on Friday, Dan Patrick said he had been told that a banner was to go out on Friday that ridiculed Stevie Williams, Tiger’s caddy. Williams had denied knowing a thing about his boss’ exploits in an interview with 60 Minutes.

According to Patrick, the banner would have mocked that assertion.

By the way, golf was played and the feel-good stories of Fred Couples and Tom Watson got pushed aside on Friday. Both men shot over par to slip down the leader board, making way for others who surged ahead.

The golf course was tougher on Friday with faster greens, difficult pin placements and wind gusts that disrupted everything from tee to green.

Filling out the top 9 places after 36 holes are:

Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter are tied for first at -8. Tiger Woods, K.J. Choi, Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim and Ricky Barnes are tied for third at -6. Y.E. Yang ended the day at -5. Tom Watson, Fred Couples, and Soren Kjeldsen are tied for 9th at -2.

Because of the difficult conditions on Friday there were only a few golfers who made any sort of big move. Poulter carded a 68 after going -4, Lee Westwood shot a 69, 3 under par while Woods, Kim and Barnes came in at -2 for a 70 on the day.

The cut is projected to be +3 leaving many big time players out of the weekend play. Some of those projected to miss the cut at +4 and above are Padraig Harrington (+5), Stewart Cink (+8), Vijay Singh at +10 and Jim Furyk at a whopping (+12).

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles. 

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