Do you believe (quote by Joe Leenheer)

[Jim_Kennedy]

No, the baloney is your taking one sentence out of context to make some point.

[John Kavanaugh]

Not my intent.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Let me flesh it out for you. Consider the controversies surrounding Singh, Player, Ballesteros, etc.. Unproven accusations about cheating are almost as powerful as the actuality. No player wants to be seen in that light, therefore they take extra care to ensure they aren't as the consequences of the label are X times worse in a sport where the player is his own policeman.

'Cheating' in many other sports is a given.     
 

[Tim Gavrich]

I have to believe that if and when Nicklaus played LC&P, he didn't intentionally let slide opportunities to do what Tiger did. If he actually robbed himself of the Rules-sanctioned advantages that the entire field of the tournament enjoyed on a given day, then the more fool he. He probably cost himself one or two tournaments over his career by doing that.

Golf is not a game of honor if the general attitude towards rules enforcement is he got his now I'm gonna get mine. 

I'd argue that the imposition of the local rule removes the honor problem you highlighted. It's not no longer a game of honor; it's just a changed game.

John, your statement seems to consist in a golf-moral objection to LC&P on its face. That's fair enough, but if the Rules give every player an acorn for the round and a given player refuses it, then it's not a game, more just stubbornness.

Alright then on the club level we should all look to they guy who legally manipulates his handicap to always do well in events and follow him.  If we are not sure where our ball crossed a lateral hazard then we should drop at the best possible scenario because we know other guys in the club do it all the time.   If we see someone declare ground unfit for play and noodle his ball we should get ours.  I get it, take what's yours before someone else gets it first.  I am rarely offended but to call someone who chooses not to be a bottom feeder stubborn got me.  Congrats, you win.

John--

I certainly didn't mean to be offensive; my apologies for heavy-handedness. I meant to confine those statements to professional competition where money is on the line. I would agree strongly with you that the handicap manipulation you mention is very untoward and speaks to diminished character. But I guess the LC&P issue is less cut-and-dried. The person who moves his/her ball in a match or tournament where LC&P is explicitly not in effect is, in no uncertain terms, cheating and acting dishonorably. But when that rule is in effect (never mind whether or not it should be in effect--that's a separate discussion, I feel), my contention is that the circumstances under which one can play the game honorably have changed.

Tiger getting himself the best lie possible according to the Rules on a given day seems industrious and not dishonorable. If he willfully denied himself that opportunity out of a moral objection to LC&P, I would furrow my brow at that.

The real question becomes: is golf + LC&P still golf?

[Michael George]

First, I don't agree with Joe's quote in the first place.  I think the golf course itself comprises one of the most special things in golf, maybe the most special to me.  The combination between sport and nature is truly awesome.   Putting on #2 green at Sand Hills and looking for miles in every direction without any civilization in site .... hitting your approach on #7 at Old Macdonald and then walking up to see not only your shot but the wonderful Oregon coastline ..... These are not things that involve sportsmanship, honesty or history.  That connection with your surroundings make golf great much more than those things listed by Joe.  For the golf professional, I understand those things being important, but they are not the reason that I play golf.

That being said, I don't think honesty or sportsmanship are dead.  At the 5th Major, I was perfectly happy having John K and his partner beat my team soundly.   I cared much more about having fun with them and experiencing a wonderful golf course than the status of our match.  As a result, we had a nice match and I enjoyed John's company quite a bit.  He really is a wonderful guy.  

Do less people exhibit sportsmanship today than in the past, yes.  I think this is largely due to people gambling more money than they should be and the stupid obsession in the US about winning in sports, versus enjoying the competition.   It causes the cheating on the course as well as the manipulation of the handicaps.  However, I don't think sportsmanship and honesty are dead.  While I hate using tournament golf as an example, just look at how Mickelson acted toward Justin Rose at the Ryder Cup.  He applauded good play and enjoyed the competition.

I never cared much for the history of golf so John, it may be dead.  If so, I am fine with it.  I don't care who wins the most majors or where major tournaments have been played.  For instance, when I consider my likes and dislikes of a golf course, I don't give much consideration to the course's history.  For example, I loved Oakland Hills greens, but I venture that they ruined many of the great parts of the  course in making it tournament ready, as it is extremly boring, penal golf from tee to green.  I love a lot of things about Oakmont.  However, I think many people on this site and other magazine panelists give its penal architecture a pass due to that history.  Honestly, without that history, would people really love its 20 yard wide fairways with bunkers of doom/disaster on both sides?  Given my choice of places to play next, I would take a trip to Dismal River and Ballyneal before either of these historic venues.  

Just my thoughts.  Interesting discussion John.

[John Kavanaugh]

Let me flesh it out for you. Consider the controversies surrounding Singh, Player, Ballesteros, etc.. Unproven accusations about cheating are almost as powerful as the actuality. No player wants to be seen in that light, therefore they take extra care to ensure they aren't as the consequences of the label are X times worse in a sport where the player is his own policeman.

'Cheating' in many other sports is a given.     
 

This all changed when the best player who ever lived had the gallery move that rock and his marker still signed the card.  No way that card gets signed in the days of the Hall of Famers you mention. The money on the pro tour has eliminated the call penalties on yourself. Please, name a current instance where there were no cameras to report the infraction.

Cheating in golf is also a given, fortunately getting it caught on video is the new conscious. 

[JNC Lyon]

One of the better threads I've read on here in awhile, with a WAR GAMES reference thrown in for good measure!

I think I used to agree with Kyle on the rules of golf, and I think I still agree in principle.  If you are breaking a rule of golf, you are cheating yourself, really.  Why not just play the ball down on a fall day?  Is that mud-ball really going to affect your enjoyment of the day (or your pride) all that much? 

That being said, I have drifted more and more towards Sean's point of view.  There are so many damn rules in the game of golf.  How many golfers know every rule, and every variation of every rule?  Very, very few.  Most golfers don't even know a few of the rules.  Everyone has unintentionally broken a rule of golf several times during their life.  To me, that shows the rules of golf are way to arcane for a sport with such mass participation.

It seems to me, the middle ground would be: fewer rules, more focus on the spirit of the game.

Are sportsmanship and honesty lost?  No way.  Maybe they are at the professional level (or, as JK hints, maybe they were never all that present), but that's a very small snapshot of the game.  Are sportsmanship and honesty the only things that matter?  No way.  The course is a MAJOR part of the what makes the game great, what gives it variety and endless fascination.  If you disagree, well, you might as play chess.

[Chip Gaskins]

very very good thread john.

john-  sounds like tiger was within the rules, but certainly not the spirit of the game

michael-wharton palmer - take the drop, make the birdie and enjoy the gaze out in the ocean!

kyle - you bring up some of the most thought provoking points on here in a while.

shows us that the game/sport means different things to different folks.  who are any of us to tell the others (as long as we areN'T competing directly with them) how to enjoy their time on the golf course.  live and and let live.

[Joe Leenheer]

The contents of the following quote by Joe Leenheer:

"But to answer the topic question...nothing.  No part of the golf course makes this game great.  Sportsmanship makes it great.  Honesty makes it great.  History makes it great."

When I first read the quote the first thing that came to mind was how a few years back many of my friends here would chime in to agree.  Sadly it fell on deaf ears because the reality of our world today is that the quote no longer rings true.  Are sportsmanship, honesty and the history we have be force fed fairy tales? 

I stand by my statement but would like to add Camaraderie to my list.  I still don't think a golf course or part of the course makes the game of golf great.  I could have fun on the cow pasture of a course that I grew up on playing as much as I could on the finest links in the world.

Note: I never said the Rules make it great.  Somehow "Honesty" got spun into rules.  Most people make up their own rules anyways and so they should.  I'm sure I won't run into those types at any qualifiers or tournaments anytime soon.

Golf Courses are amazing.  But Golf, as a game, is great because it sets it self apart from other sports.  Players do call penalties on themselves.  Crowds don't boo, hiss, or taunt (outside the Ryder Cup) when a player hits an poor shot in golf.  It's a great game. How many other games can you play with or against someone of completely different skill levels and have a great, competitive time?

I look forward to teaching my children this great game because it will better them as a person so much more than any other sport.    

....and I still like water hazards.  However, I do not like Out of Bounds. 

John....thank you for quoting me in a thread...I feel like a mini-celebrity today!
  

[John Kavanaugh]

Chip,

How we are to live and let live when the rules are muddled in intent?

 Rule 1-2  A player must not (i) take an action with the intent to influence the movement of a ball in play or (ii) alter physical conditions with the intent of affecting the playing of a hole.  

There is no honor in questioning the intent of a friend. How can you possibly know another mans intent without raising the question?  These are not rules, they are a recipe that begs for the destruction of sportsmanship, friendships and the good in man. Rules that give evil a pass are the basis of all sin.

[Tom_Doak]

Iam with Sean,
Venues overide so many of the crazy rules within the game, unless one is competing in an actual event.
If I am playing Cape Kidnappers for the only time in my life and land in a deep unreoiared divot, I am probably going to take a drop..am I no longer playing golf at a specatcular venue...as far as I am concerned I am.
The rules in FULL are for when I am grinding out a score in competition.

Michael:

I will sleep a bit less easily tonight after hearing that building a great golf course in a beautiful and remote location actually causes people to take liberties with the rules more often!

Then again, I sometimes hit an extra shot at a hole if I've buggered up the real approach ... and posting my own score seldom matters to anyone anyway.  I've argued here in the past few days that people who are obsessed with reporting every score might have problems bigger than their handicap.


John:

This is a good thread but my feeling is that anytime golf goes too far on the holier-than-thou scale, we are looking for trouble.  Golfers are generally admirable athletes, but not perfect ones.  There have been accusations of cheating even involving the game's greats going back to the earliest days of the game. 

Nicklaus was a model sportsman but he, too, was known to look for every advantage offered fairly by the Rules, such as questioning whether the grandstand was in his line when his ball was deep in the woods, at Wentworth, I believe ... much the same as candidate Romney insisted that he'd paid every dime of his taxes he was required by law to pay, after using every tax shelter he could find.  (Sorry to get political there.)

Morals in general seem to be on the decline (ask any four-star general, if you can find any left to ask).  No surprise that they should seem to be on the decline in golf, too.  We're still doing better than most sports, I think.  The principles of the game are right, but it's up to mere mortals to follow them.

[Sean_A]

Chip

I am definitely of the live and let live ilk.  We all have our own ideas of how to enjoy the game.  Hell, I don't get fussed when someone wants to ride a cart and that has far more impact on my enjoyment than where to drop a ball.

Ciao

[Adam Clayman]

Cheating is not in the sport, it's in the people.   

There was a recent rant on people who whine about politicians (Me guilty), and what a waste of time, ranting about it is,

Because

Politicians are people that reflect the type of people we are. Ergo, if politicians suck, we as people suck.

Protecting the field is missing from more than just golf.

[John Kavanaugh]

Cheating is not in the sport, it's in the people.   

There was a recent rant on people who whine about politicians (Me guilty), and what a waste of time, ranting about it is,

Because

Politicians are people that reflect the type of people we are. Ergo, if politicians suck, we as people suck.

Protecting the field is missing from more than just golf.

There was never a time in history where we knew that the "intent" of a politician was to benefit the people while not helping himself.

How did "intent" ever get in the rules of golf?  Our parents loved us more than anyone else ever will in our lives and even they didn't buy.."I didn't mean to."

[Kyle Harris]

Cheating is not in the sport, it's in the people.   

There was a recent rant on people who whine about politicians (Me guilty), and what a waste of time, ranting about it is,

Because

Politicians are people that reflect the type of people we are. Ergo, if politicians suck, we as people suck.

Protecting the field is missing from more than just golf.

There was never a time in history where we knew that the "intent" of a politician was to benefit the people while not helping himself.

How did "intent" ever get in the rules of golf?  Our parents loved us more than anyone else ever will in our lives and even they didn't buy.."I didn't mean to."

Intent and context aren't in the rules of golf, though.

[John Kavanaugh]

Kyle,

I don't understand your point.  As greens get faster are we going to decide championships by who can mark their balls best? How can you possibly question a golfer if it was his intent to place his ball on a knob instead of a holler?  If you are at the top of a hill and the wind is blowing at the hole do you believe that 100% of all golfers are going to mark their ball in the least likely place for the ball to roll closer. Why are we as simple fellow golfers asked to judge a mans intent when all men are inherently evil? 

[Tom_Doak]

Why are we as simple fellow golfers asked to judge a mans intent when all men are inherently evil? 

If you believe that all mean are inherently evil, isn't the rest of this discussion moot?

[John Kavanaugh]

Why are we as simple fellow golfers asked to judge a mans intent when all men are inherently evil? 

If you believe that all mean are inherently evil, isn't the rest of this discussion moot?

I'm trying to lift the curtain on golf being a game of honor because we police ourselves.

[Adam Clayman]

There's no curtain to lift on the game. Just on individuals who play it.

After all, it is a recreational sport for all but what? 5%?

There are still plenty of players who think truth trumps bullshit.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Please, name a current instance where there were no cameras to report the infraction.

Here's three:

Eight hours after completing his second round at Kiawah, Mike Hoey remembered that he had failed to recreate his lie after lifting his ball to identify it. He 'turned' himself in and was DQ'ed. No camera necessary.

Mark Wilson  hit a left-handed chip shot and thought he heard two-clicks. He asked his caddie and he agreed. He added the two shots, no camera necessary, which caused him to miss the cut at the Players Championship.  

Wilson also called a two-shot penalty on himself at the Honda Classic when his caddie inadvertently told another player in the group what club Wilson had just hit, no camera necessary.

There are other instances, like Brian Davis at Kiawah, where the player was the first one to call out his infraction and ask for the film to verify the facts.

[Tommy Williamsen]

The contents of the following quote by Joe Leenheer:

"But to answer the topic question...nothing.  No part of the golf course makes this game great.  Sportsmanship makes it great.  Honesty makes it great.  History makes it great."
 

I understand what he is trying to say and agree to an extent.  I, however, play golf alone quite a bit.  i enjoy the solitude of a late evening round.  In that setting the quiet beauty and the challenge of the golf course are what elevates the time from a nice evening walk to a great ending to my day.

[John Kavanaugh]

I believe that 100% of my friends do not intentionally cheat at golf under the standards that we have mutually agreed upon.  

[Jim Sherma]

I believe that 100% of my friends do not intentionally cheat at golf under the standards that we have mutually agreed upon.  

I like the way you phrased that. I don't play for enough money to be a total stickler on the entire rule book, but I sure expect a consistent respect for the game within my group. For example: A squirlley lie is rub of the green, but if an area is dmaged and would be marked off as ground under repair in a decent level tournament take a drop and move on; a reasonably quick invocation of a free drop in falle leaves in order to move along play without plodding around for five minutes; gorse as floating water hazards instead of lost balls so you don't have to keep reloading or walking back on blind shots. I'm sure there are plenty of other "infractions" that allow for an "honest" match and a good repect of "the game" (breakfast balls on the first tee if the range is closed) as long as everyone repects the match and doesn't try to take advantage, it all works out.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Tom..
that is my point.
If I am playing for FUN on a venue I have travelled many miles to see, the rules of the game are less of a concern to me versus when I am competing.
I do not tee it up every time I play to count my score, there are things way deeper within the game than that for me.

For people to judge my values and what I enjoy about playing based upon their values is totally ignorant and demeaning.
Really Gents who the hell do you think you are ?...I am no less honourable if I choose to throw down three balls for a certain shot, or flick my ball out of a divot if I so choose...as long as I am not competing

It does not mean that I hold the game in any less regard than anybody else..you guys dont know me, or how I feel about the game, how much time I spend playing, studying the game ot anything I do regarding the game.

Should I choose to play anyway I want out of competition is irrelevant to how I regard the rules of the game.
Sometimes I just want to hit shots on beautiful venues and enjoy the moment, be at one with myself and the course, to hell with any rules, just have fun.
If some of you dont understand that viewpoint, perhaps YOU dont have a very good grasp on what the game is all about!!!!!!

[JMEvensky]

Tom..
that is my point.
If I am playing for FUN on a venue I have travelled many miles to see, the rules of the game are less of a concern to me versus when I am competing.
I do not tee it up every time I play to count my score, there are things way deeper within the game than that for me.

For people to judge my values and what I enjoy about playing based upon their values is totally ignorant and demeaning.
Really Gents who the hell do you think you are ?...I am no less honourable if I choose to throw down three balls for a certain shot, or flick my ball out of a divot if I so choose...as long as I am not competing

It does not mean that I hold the game in any less regard than anybody else..you guys dont know me, or how I feel about the game, how much time I spend playing, studying the game ot anything I do regarding the game.

Should I choose to play anyway I want out of competition is irrelevant to how I regard the rules of the game.
Sometimes I just want to hit shots on beautiful venues and enjoy the moment, be at one with myself and the course, to hell with any rules, just have fun.
If some of you dont understand that viewpoint, perhaps YOU dont have a very good grasp on what the game is all about!!!!!!

For those unaware,MW-P has some serious game--emphasis on serious.

Or at least he used to.