No one likes a cheater. But if the doomsday prophecies of an ex-caddie are anything to go by, golf cheaters are more common than you might think.
Cheating in Golf
While golf cheaters continue to give the game a bad name, Vijay Singh’s former caddie Kip Henley revealed in an interview with Golf.com that "cheating happens almost every single round" on the PGA Tour.
"Cheating happens almost every single round," said Henley. "If people think there's no cheating out there, they're crazy. Some of it is intentional, and some of it is just sheer ignorance.
"If a caddie is paying attention and understands the rules and knows what the guy is doing, and sees the situation setting up and then quietly pays attention without them realizing you're paying attention, you'll see a lot of stuff."
What's even more concerning is the fact that if golf cheating is even common in something as serious as the PGA Tour, then it’s much more than likely that the everyday person who plays leisurely will come across some cheaters as well. The fact of the matter is a cheater will always find a golf cheat to fall back on whenever they find themselves struggling in some way. But why is cheating in golf so common?
Why Do Golf Cheaters Cheat?
Protecting their reputation
One possible reason is that golfers have built up a reputation for how great they are at golf. If that’s been nothing but talk then they’ll have to protect that reputation.
“Cheating is one easy way to ensure their reputation stays intact and pristine while they play.”
Improve the Handicap
The thing about the handicap is that it determines how many strokes you’re allowed for each hole. A golf cheater will intentionally play worse than they are and inflate their handicap index. In turn, this increases their chances of doing better in a golf tournament.
Ego
This sort of ties in with the first motivation “reputation”.
“Some golfers who find themselves routinely cheating may have a hard time admitting they’re simply not as good at golf as they believe they are. So they resort to cheating at golf to improve their scores and make themselves believe that they’re as good as they say they are. Cheating provides an easy way to accomplish this goal by taking a few strokes off each hole or game they play.”
Golf Cheaters and Business Cheaters
As early as 2004, Sal F. Marino, chairman emeritus of Penton Media Inc, wrote an article on Industry Week about how those who cheat in golf are more likely to cheat in business as well.
In the article, he cited a study involving more than 400 business executives. Asked if they cheated at golf, 55% admitted they did. More than one-third of the admitted cheaters said they also lied in their business practices.
“To me, this raises a broader issue: the public's concern about business credibility. I see this concern as only part of a much bigger one: the issue of today's morality and value standards,” Marino said.
Marino makes a valid point. But Henley’s revelation on the amount of cheating that actually happens in golf draws a scary conclusion as well. If cheating is so rampant among golfers then some retrospective needs to be taken place here: what kind of people are drawn to golf?
How You and Deemples Can Help
Golf in itself continues to be a beautiful game but the cheaters in golf also continue to turn it ugly. Funny enough, even the most disliked players on the PGA Tour have never been known to cheat. This means that there are certain golfers out there who outright deserve to be disliked more so than the players on the PGA Tour. We at Deemples want to attract the right people to golf and allow them the opportunity to golf more. That’s why we created the fairest handicap system available to date.
At the end of your game, you can key in your playing partner’s adjusted gross scores after applying equitable stroke control, but you cannot key in your own scores. Once you have at least 5 scores submitted by others on Deemples, the app will then calculate your handicap index and revise it every time a new score is submitted. This allows you to have a most trusted, peer-reviewed, peer-inputted, peer-approved handicap which you can apply to all your golf games.
But you need to do your part as well. Get all of your friends to join Deemples so that we can have more and more golfers playing fair games together BY THE RULES! Let's keep the golfing world beautiful, one golfer at a time.
