Tiger Woods believes that he was incorrectly handed the two-shot penalty that saw him finish four shots behind leader Jim Furyk following three rounds at the BMW Championship.

The world number one's day began in controversial fashion when he was penalised over an incident on the first hole, when his ball moved as he tried to remove some twigs from his lie.

That turned his double-bogey six into an eight, but Woods carded six birdies in a seven-hole stretch around the turn at Conway Farms in Chicago to recover well and shoot a five-under par 66.

However, the 14-time Major winner feels that he was forced to work much harder for his close-of-play position due to what he believes was the wrong decision by tournament officials.

"After seeing the video, I thought the ball just oscillated, and I thought that was it," Woods told reporters. "I thought that was the end of story. But they (rules officials) saw otherwise.

"They replayed it again and again and again, and I felt the same way. We had a very good discussion. I'll end it at that. I was pretty hot because I felt like, as I said, nothing happened.

"I felt like the ball oscillated and that was it. I played the rest of the round grinding my tail off to get myself back in the tournament and then go from five to seven behind, that was tough."

Furyk holds the lead at 13-under par, largely thanks to his record-equalling round of 59 on Friday, with fellow American Steve Stricker his closest rival one shot back.