There are times when you shake hands with a complete stranger in your fourball and an hour later you’re sworn enemies.
Suzann Pettersen certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest when comments attributed to her were published in a Norwegian newspaper, where she was quoted as saying President Donald Trump ‘cheats like hell’.
‘They say if you cheat at golf, you cheat at business. I’m pretty sure he pays his caddie well, since no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there,’ said Pettersen.
The fuss that followed resulted in the former world No 2 claiming the comments were tongue-in-cheek, ‘with a big smile on my face’.
The reality is, the closer you look, the more you see those who push the boundaries to keep the ugly scores off their cards. Is it an inflated ego or flawed character?
This includes those who have a rubber and a ‘sharp pencil’ when filling in their scores for betterball Stableford, two scores to count. Later, at the prizegiving, you hear, ‘And in 10th place, on a count-out on 98 points …’
I’m sure most of us have been exposed to cheating, be it deliberately, or through genuine naivety. No one carries a copy of the R&A’s Rules of Golf in their back pocket. Mostly, a golfer won’t break the same rule twice. It’s that kind of game. You’ll only ever have to tell someone once that they have transgressed and it’s a lesson learned, no hard feelings.
But, there are times when you shake hands with a complete stranger in your fourball and an hour later you’re sworn enemies. Cheat at golf and you’ll likely cheat in business and in life.
There’s that tell-tale sign when someone is asked, ‘What are you lying?’ The player starts pointing and tracing back their shots, zigzagging from tee to green. ‘One, two, three … four.’ And, that ‘system’ continues through the round. Yeah, right.
Once, on the par-four 4th hole at Arabella, I putted out and looked down the fairway. No one was on the short stuff for their approaches. Imagine the surprise when a player from that fourball won longest drive on that hole, later at the prizegiving.
On another occasion I was playing with an upstanding member of the corporate world, so I was told. He certainly dressed and talked the part, although the beauty about golf is that it’s a great leveller. He regularly found trouble off the tee, yet strangely turned down the request to help him find his ball, because, ‘It slows the pace of play. Go ahead, I’ll find it,’ he’d say magnanimously, and wave us away. More often than not, he’d come out of the rough impressively.
It was only after I’d also hit it into the bush off the tee that I discovered what was happening. A new ball would be taken out of the bag and placed on a tee – and out it would fly. Even when he was confronted later over a beer, he denied cheating. Until I showed him his original ball I’d found when looking for my own one.
On a ‘higher level’, some years ago I reported on the British Amateur Championship and while there caddied a round for a golfer. On one hole I placed his bag off the green in the direction of the next tee box. The opponent, who had a 15-footer to halve, overhit the putt and it rolled … and rolled … and touched the bag. The hole was therefore conceded.
Sure, it was my mistake, but no way can an amateur representing his country miss a putt so badly. Unless he did it deliberately. Surely not?
– This article first appeared in the March issue of Compleat Golfer, now on sale
