Armed heckler removed from course

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - A fan heckling Tiger Woods at the Phoenix Open on Sunday was detained by police after they discovered he was carrying a handgun.

The man was standing on the sixth hole and yelling, ''Tiger, Tiger,'' during the final round of the event. The gun was found in his back pack.

It was not immediately clear whether the man wanted to harm Woods.

The man's name was not released, and police did not return a phone call to say whether the gun was loaded or whether he had been charged.

Woods and tournament winner Rocco Mediate, who played in the final threesome with Harrison Frazar, were not aware the man was armed until after the event ended.

''I just kept walking,'' said the 23-year-old Woods, who won seven of his first 37 tournaments after joining the PGA tour. ''Rocco and I were walking down the fairway and just kind of talking about it.''

Mediate heard a man using vulgar language.

''An officer told him to watch his mouth, and he pushed him,'' Mediate said. ''Wrong thing to do. The officer put him on his back right away.''

Told the man had a gun, Mediate asked for confirmation. Then he said, ''Oh no. It's just a game.''

Woods had seen something similar in Dallas when he was a teen-ager attending Stanford. He was playing a practice round when two women approached.

''A policeman asked them what they were doing there, and they kind of lost it,'' Woods said. When the officer checked, he found guns in the backpacks of both women.

TRW