All About Honor

[Flagstick Golf Magazine]

It's June and that means that tournament golf season is well upon us. You never know what you can expect to see when you play tournament golf, either professionally or as an amateur. One thing that I see often clearly lacking in is a sense of honor among golfers. Sure, you do see the occasional golfer enforcing a penalty as per the rules of golf on themselves but what I witnessed last week at a member-guest event does not quite happen as often.

 

More often than not at tournaments golfers are all about one thing, the trip to the prize table. Too often golfers will sacrifice their honor for something as small as a dozen golf balls or a wind shirt. How many times have you read about or witnessed a golfer fudging their handicap and then proceeding to shoot a "miracle score" to capture a net prize. All the while they are fooling nobody but themselves.

 

While playing a member-guest recently a player within my group posted a solid score, good enough to earn him a trip to the prize table as the third overall gross score winner. Rightfully so, he was proud of his accomplishment, as were we . I was even prouder of him the next day for another reason.

 

It was then that I received an e-mail from him stating that he had gone over his round in his mind the previous night, as was his custom before falling asleep, and he had concluded that on one hole where he had recorded a bogey he had in fact taken a double bogey. First thing in the morning he called the club and informed them of the error and that he wanted to be disqualified to ensure that the prize he had received would go to the person who was actually deserving of it.

 

Imagine the surprise of that golfer when he learned of his windfall and rightful place as the third-place winner. Hopefully that golfer had been just as honest in his own round, ensuring to record his score properly and finish out every short putt. If not I imagine he was the recipient of one very guilty lesson of honor.

 

It is nice to know that there are still honorable people that play this game. Knowing that is more gratifying to me than any trip to the prize table I might make this year.

 

Cheers Joe, good on you!

 

 

www.flagstickeditorsdesk.blogspot.com

[johnj]

Great anecdote...Thanks for posting...Whenever I am discussing golf with someone whom I don't know I always ask this question of them..."Do you play golf or are you a golfer?"...Claiming to Not understand the question carries the same weight as a negative response as far as I'm concerned...The character in your anecdote is a golfer and I would say that you are also...J

[hoganfan924]

Whenever I am discussing golf with someone whom I don't know I always ask this question of them..."Do you play golf or are you a golfer?"...Claiming to Not understand the question carries the same weight as a negative response as far as I'm concerned

 

Ohhh, I like that! I must begin using that immediately!

[Milo]

The likelihood of that happening over here is precisely zero. If that.

 

I see more cheating in one match than most people will have to put up with in a lifetime. The local culture is incompatible with honor golf. Or honor business, for that matter.

 

Good on your friend. Long may he swing it.

[kinneywhat]

I wish we had such honorable people on the courses in my area.

 

A tournament I played at about a month ago is a perfect example of people cheating to get a crappy prize. It was a charity event with a captain and crew format. I thought we had one of the better teams at the tournament and that we played well. The worst person on our team was myself at a 15.2 index. The other players on my team were all single digit handicaps. We finished the tournament at 10 under (18 holes), which I thought for sure would be the winning score. Well, the team in front of us, who I saw take bogies on two consecutive holes and didn't have a player with better than an 18 or so handicap, managed to come in at 13 under somehow with no bogies listed on their scorecard. It was not a handicapped tournament obviously, since it was captain and crew.

 

The prizes were nothing worth cheating. I've seen this same team do this at other events as well. The sad part is that it's a group of older gentlemen (50+) that are all well off. I cringe every time I show up to a tournament and they're there, because I know they're going to cheat themselves into a top 3 finish. If it were teenagers doing it, it still wouldn't be right, but a little more understandable. I don't know how these men can sleep at night. They do it every tournement. I don't mind losing to good golfers, but losing to a cheating team really gets me. There's quite a few people at my country club that will use a foot wedge in tournament play. Everyone know who they are, but golf is a gentlemen's sport, so nobody ever reports it.

 

RalphReville, we need a lot more people like your friend.

[RagingAardvark]

I played in a tournament at Arrowhead in Colorado on a day where my swing deserted me and my buddy's occasional good shot never materialized. We played pretty mediocrely, but recorded each crummy hole just as it went. when we finished up and were eating we looked over at the scoreboard. There were at least 4 groups claiming to have shot 60 or below. yeeeeeeah, right.

 

The humorous bit was we ended up dead LAST, and they had a trophy for each of us. HA!! So, where hardly anyone else won a prize, we still came home with one. If we'd fudged our numbers, we'd have just been middle of the pack :) That trophy still sits on my desk, as a reminder that you can have fun even when you are sucking.

[wedgetoafoot]

Yeah,

 

I wouldn't play in a handicapped tournament unless it was free.

 

Speaking of such an occasion, I played a scramble (free to me, but entry was paid) for a fund that was set up in rememberance of a priest of all things this week where there was certainly some cheating going on.

 

It was teams of 4 recording the scores from the top 2 scores in the group with full handicaps applied. This was a par 70 course, so total par of 140 per group. What did the winner shoot? 39 under. Yahhh right.