Have you ever witnessed a Tour Pro CHEATING in a Tour Event? 54 % Yes

[labatudgm]

I sent the following letter to Golf Monthly regarding last month’s magazine article on Caddies and the poll attached to the end of it. I have received no response, (printed in this month’s letters page or otherwise), and have seen no comment about the subject matter anywhere here. So I now present my letter to the GM Forum for comment…

*****
Dear Golf Monthly,

Did I really just read that in Golf Monthly?

Not only did I read it but looked high and low in the article that presided it, (for any kind of comment about it), and it was not even mentioned. I expected condemnation of the highest order in print - follow up articles on the morals of the game being eroded. Nothing - Did I miss something here?

Did I really just read in a Poll Question to 50 PGA Tour Caddies?

Have you ever witnessed a Tour Pro CHEATING in a Tour Event? 54 % Yes

WOW – really? Just like that and with no follow up at all. We just let that go. Did you do anything about it? Did you inform your player? The Match Referee? Tournament Committee? An Official? Anyone? Why NOT?

I highlighted the word CHEATING because it’s not ‘breaking the rules inadvertently’ is it – its CHEATING - himself, fellow pros, the competition, his tour and the golfing public at large. It’s not an isolated incident either with 27 out of 50 caddies polled it’s more at the ‘endemic problem’ end of the scale. Cheating is a highly emotive word GM manages to almost throw away at the top of the page, (with ‘and even cheating’), so we are not just talking rules infractions here.

This is GOLF we are talking about - high moral code, fair play, standards and sportsmanship.
Or do we all now accept that the caddies should, and do, just look away and say nothing

Thou shalt NOT cheat - a golfing/sporting commandment. The rules and regulations that you impose on yourself and have an obligation to the rest of the competitors to uphold. The Caddies are watching Pros cheating, (GM even giving the ‘Saltman Incident’ as an example and he was banned for 3 months), and no one says a word? I know it was a Golf magazine Poll but you didn’t just cut and paste it in there did you? Someone other than me must have analysed and commented on the significance and some light bulbs must have gone off somewhere.

Why is this not one of the biggest stories in golf? Why is it not being followed up and investigated?

Cheating in ANY sport, let alone Golf, cannot be brushed under the table. It may create difficulties, (Bad Publicity and Headlines), but Pro Golf must root out a problem which goes it the very heart of our beloved sport. Golf must be able to show that cheats should never prosper just like other Olympic sports do. Rules infractions are regularly picked up by the TV viewer and reported. Caddies must be able to report cheating immediately.

What has Golf Monthly got to say on this issue? Not just cheating in general but the admission of caddies that they have seen Tour Pro’s cheating laid bare in black and white?

Yours faithfully,
labatudgm
*****
Whilst I can accept criticism regarding an overuse of CAPITALS and maybe a ‘soapboxy higher than thou’ attitude to the subject of 1 question in a poll.

The word used was cheating.

I still say it’s a serious issue in need of further investigation by the authorities.

What say you GM Forum?

 

[Brookesy]

Yeah i remember reading this and thinking it was high! The only thing ive seen since i started watching the pga tour on sky was david toms i think, he pushed down the grass behind the ball on a chip he was doing and i think didnt get penalised for it.

Cant say i can remember many other instances of cheating on the tour

 

[JustOne]

Good post... totally agree with your comments. Cheating is cheating is cheating. There's no way to put a silver lining on it, provided it can be proved of course.

 

[patricks148]

sorry didn't read all of the letter, but do they mean 54% of them are banging young ladies other than there wives, a la tiger?

 

[Ethan]

I think this is possibly true, but important to put in perspective. Many of these caddies have caddied for 10 or 15 years, on several Tours, perhaps doing 30 or 40 events a year, each of up to 72 holes with 1 or 2 partners, as well as their own player each hole. That is maybe 20,000 holes of golf, and for half of them to have seen one player cheat once is still a very low rate of cheating.

Anyway, some of them may have been wrong and for example may have considered drops to be cheating when they were actually legal.

 

[Chrimbo]

Yeah i remember reading this and thinking it was high! The only thing ive seen since i started watching the pga tour on sky was david toms i think, he pushed down the grass behind the ball on a chip he was doing and i think didnt get penalised for it.

Same as Kenny Perry, one minutes you can't see the ball in the rough then ...... hey presto it appears as he uses his wedge to tap the grass down behind his ball ........ also spotted Bill Haas doing the same thing last year.

Both guys weren't penalised but to my mind they should have been.

 

[HickoryShaft]

I read this also and was a bit taken aback by the high percentage.

I would have expected a few more scandals if this was the case.

 

[JustOne]

A few days ago I watched Gary Player winning the 1974 Open on Sky. On the 18th he was against the clubhouse wall and hit his putter left handed... but not before scraping a foot of soil way from behind the ball. Trying desperately to find it on Youtube or something but can't

 

[Slime]

One incidence of cheating is one too many.
We play a glorious game & it's gorious because of the high moral standards that surround it.
All deliberate cheats should be 'outed' and punished............end of.
If it's an accidental rule infringement they should be penalised & educated.
As JustOne said, "Cheating is cheating is cheating".

As a rider to this, I remember a few years ago Gary Player, on the eve of The Open Championship, claimed he knew of several tour players who would fail a drugs test................yet he failed to name them. Why?
If they'd been randomly tested nobody would have been any the wiser.
Just a thought,

Slime.

 

[Brookesy]

Alot of stuff that happens on tour we dont hear about as the pro's have a "code of silence", so i think we'd be suprised at the amount of stuff that happens on tour that stays on tour!

 

[Tignanello97]

Monty was on the panel that dealt with the "saltman incident"...the same Monty who in Indonesia clearly put his ball back in a far more favourable place after a rain delay. Before the klaxon it was a good foot above his stance in deep rough, next it was sitting up on an almost level stance. Pots & kettles.

 

[Val]

I think to be fair some forms of cheating may not be deemed cheating in the players eyes but the caddy viewed it differently where it could be preffered lies being replaced to far out from the allowed distance, drops in the wrong area etc etc.

I agree cheating is cheating but I'm sure the vast majority on here will have cheated at some point without even knowing it.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I saw a similar poll in a separate magazine and the example the unnamed caddy gave was a player marking the ball several inches in front of the marker. We know this goes on. I'm sure there are other incidents too but the problem I see is that if a caddy whistle blows and the case against a player is unproven or unfounded hes out of a career. It would take a lot of evidence for a caddy to be able to categorically prove a play has cheated. If the players aren't calling other players out then even less chance of a caddy doing so. Is cheating really that rife. I'm not convinced

 

[Whereditgo]

I agree cheating is cheating but I'm sure the vast majority on here will have cheated at some point without even knowing it.

Is it really cheating if you don't know? Surely the worst you could then be accused of is ignorance?

Cheating has to be intentionally breaking a rule to attempt to benefit IMO

 

[DaveM]

Thought for a minute Gilbert was back.

 

[Val]

Is it really cheating if you don't know? Surely the worst you could then be accused of is ignorance?

Cheating has to be intentionally breaking a rule to attempt to benefit IMO

I agree to an extent, but ignorance of the rules shouldn't be an excuse though.

 

[DappaDonDave]

Maybe they all saw the same guy cheat so it's only once really.

 

[Fyldewhite]

Remember statistics can be very misleading. 54% sounds high but if only one or two pros over several years were guilty of "dodgy marking" or something similar then it wouldn't take long for a great many tour caddies to have witnessed it. Not many (as with club golf) have the balls to make the allegation official but will be happy to continue the rumour mill. It doesn't mean there's a whole bunch of cheats on tour.

 

[Canfordhacker]

I only read last month's mag today and had the same reaction as the OP - I think it's shocking. When we have so many threads on here that basically recommend stringing people up for the tiniest infringement in a roll up with a couple of quid on it I'm surprised by the seeming laissez faire response here.

I'd love more details - and if the tour is a closed shop then where is the trust and respect for the great game that we should see transparently throughout the game? And if a caddy might lose his job, where is the support mechanism (whistle blowing in business terms) that the tour administrators have a duty to create?

It's just wrong.

 

[need_my_wedge]

Was watching the Humana event on Sky Sunday night. Watched Zack Johnson getting ready to putt from the fringe, when he knelt down beside the ball and gently rubbed the grass back and forth. The commentators immediately picked up on it as "checking the direction of the grain" and questioned whether he had broken the rules. David Feherty came straight back that he was most likely "wiping some light snot off of his hand"..........