Cheating at Golf

One September afternoon my husband journeyed to the club to see the final round of the Club Championship. He also planned to watch the award ceremony for the winners—both male and female in all the various flights.

He came home with a trophy. But it was not his—it was mine. I told him there had to have been a mistake. I knew my final score was not very stellar at all and I also knew that there were several people whose score fell well below mine.

I believe golf is just about the only sport where its players feel freely  inclined from time to time to self-interpret the rules---and by the word self- interpret I actually mean cheat.

I played racquet sports for years and other than playing “first in”—the equivalent in tennis or platform tennis to the golf term “mulligan” or “breakfast ball,” people respected the rules. The lines on the court defined the space that was safe for the ball to land—people did not ignore them when ta ball went “long.” No one says I am not playing the service line today.  No one playing tennis would ever not count a whiffed ball or a double hit.

But golf is very different. Not everyone “holes out.” For them, as long as a ball sits “within the leather” it is a “gimme”—which means a player assumes that they would have gotten the ball in the hole with one stroke had they played it. And I have personally watched people “find” a lost ball so they did not have to take a penalty stroke or use their “foot wedge” to give their ball a better lie. I have seen branches “accidentally” snapped to improve a stance or a ball “dropped” farther than arm’s length.

And I can say for sure, that anytime you ask someone in your foursome at the finish of a hole What did you get? And they answer with the words “Give me” a 6. The actual score is probably an 8. The follow up response with them should be I’ll give you a 6, but what did you really get?

And I received that trophy that year because three people with lower scores were disqualified for failing to record penalty shots—either with or without intention.

And I myself have been disqualified from a tournament that I should have won—not because I “forgot” to count errant shots but because I could not add. I had reported a score 2 strokes higher than it should have been—in my mind, an honorable, if not stupid mistake. And while it was my partner’s job to check my addition and sign the card to prevent such a disqualification, she apparently couldn’t add either. That silver plated tray in turn went to someone else.

And so it was less silverware in my stockpile---and less tarnish to worry about—either on a tray, or thankfully on my reputation.