R&A Chief Dawson urges top tours to make their disciplinary actions public

Badly-behaved golfers should be named and shamed, and not afforded the privacy given to them by the tours they play on, according to R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson.

The conduct of former world No. 1 Tiger Woods, as the most high-profile golfer on the circuit, has often come in for criticism. Ironically, he is one of the few players to have his punishment made public after he was reprimanded for spitting at last year's Omega Dubai Desert Classic on the European Tour.

Dawson would like more openness in the disciplinary process to discourage poor behavior. But he admits that the R&A cannot enforce it for one week of the year at the British Open, which this summer will be being staged at Royal Lytham and St Annes.

"The European Tour have published once or twice. Both tours know our view on that but it is a matter for them," he said. "I have gone on record as saying more public sanctioning would not be a bad thing.

"That would not be the Tour policy certainly in the United States and they have reasons for that," he added. "One would have thought public sanctions would be more likely to lead to a correction of behavior rather than private sanctions.

"We have always relied on the tours to put players through their disciplinary procedures or tour members if there is some kind of misbehavior," he said. "We don't actually have a published Open Championship bad behavior policy. It is not something you can do for one week a year."