Off the fence - Handicap Bandits are not up to Scratch
Denis Walsh Published: 8 December 2013
It is nearly 50 years since James Bond and Mr. Goldfinger played a treacherous 18 holes at
Stoke Park. In his day job Bond wasn't bound by rules by conventions which made golf a
perfect arena for a skirmish with his villain du jour. How many rules could they break?
Countless. Golf gives you more opportunities for wrong doing than any other sport on
earth. You don't even have to mean it.
During the week the disciplinary committee of the European Tour ruled out accidents in
Simon Dyson's case. Six weeks ago, in a tournament in Shanghai, he flattened a spike mark
on his putting line and the committee found that his action was "deliberate" but not a
“premeditated act of cheating". They used the phrase "momentary aberration" to cut
Dyson some slack and quoted 14 years of good behaviour in giving him a suspended
sentence.
The £30,000 (€35,800) find and £7,500 (€9,000) in costs they awarded against him are well
within Dyson's means but the odour exceeds any punishment. This is where golf is different
from other sports. In most field games cheating is tolerated to one degree or another. In
some situations it is championed.
At the breakdown in rugby winning teams cheat; the same applies to the scrum. In Gaelic
football strategic fouling is the curse of the age. As long as Gaelic Games have been played
forwards have been struck off the ball yet hard men have always been celebrated. In
soccer, a corner can't be taken without jerseys being grabbed in the penalty area.
Cheating, by definition, is the pursuit of an advantage by unfair means. In field sports
successful teams actively seek that edge. In golf the rules have a different status. They
don't exist to be bent or manipulated or ignored at your convenience. You're not trying to
deceive a referee or an umpire. Self-regulation gives the rules a sort of divine
omnipresence; you walk with them for 18 holes and are expected to apply them with
conscience. Trust on that scale might be a hopelessly romantic notion in the modern world
but golf depends on it. In the clubhouse nobody tells amusing stories about the fast one
they pulled.
For the handicap golfer it is often said that knowing the rules is like having another club in
your bag. That might seem odd given how many ways there are to incur a penalty but what
it really means is that the rule book makes provision for relief too. Your ball is in a bad
place? Don't panic. Not yet.
It’s not about right and wrong so much as fairness. The spirit of golf is not expressed in the
sub-legal language of the rule book but in the determination of golfers to respect the rules
insofar as they know them. In the venal world of modern sport that remains a noble
obligation.
Yet, club golf is racked with cheating. Not with balls being kicked out of the rough or lies
being improved; the scourge of club golf is the manipulation of handicaps.
The theory is that you play golf to achieve your best possible score; by doing so you may
exceed the standard scratch for a given competition and have your handicap cut by a
process that is utterly transparent. You can be cut without winning a prize and by being cut
your chances of winning prize the next day are reduced but that is neither here nor there;
the glory is in playing well.
There is perhaps, a certain vanity in driving your handicap down as law as you can push it
but it is an honourable process and it is also the essence of golf. At all levels of the games,
the greatest opponent in golf is yourself. For club golfers the handicap systems allows for
those days when you beat yourself up. If you fail to reach standard scratch your handicap is
eased slightly, by 0.1 of a shot. If your heart is in the right place you will defend that 0.1
with every ounce of your being.
The reality, however, is that in every club there are players who deliberately fail to reach
standard scratch in order to inflate their handicaps. You know them. Everybody knows
them. Are they challenged? Never. Are they spoken about behind their backs? Always.
Is it corrosive to the spirit of golf? Absolutely.
In recent weeks two Limerick golf clubs have taken a strong stand on this practice and a
couple of corrective motions will be put to the Golfing Union of Ireland's A.G.M. in February.
Castletroy and Limerick Golf club should be applauded and supported. But rules alone
won't cure this. The rogue cards of handicap bandits are signed and therefore legitimised
by their playing partners every day, all over the country. There is no rule that says you
must sign. The spirit of golf is worth the row.
Denis Walsh 8 December 2013.
Reproduced by kind permission of The Sunday Times