Ethics and Cheating at Golf

dphatt

I played in a two man captains choice event today. My partner said we got paired with a cheater. I asked him how so and he said that he would manipulate the score in his favor. I was like how would you do that??? Before we teed off I saw my partner exchange cards. I found out after the first hole that we had our own card. I was like how does that work? He said he would keep their team score and compare at the end. My partner and I shot 37-30 and we thought we finished pretty strong considering we bogeyed the first two holes. The other two missed a 5 foot birdie putt and I hear one of them say that would have been a 68. I was like no way they were that close to us. We added up their score and it was 72. My friend turns to me and asked what should we do. I said it was his club and it was up to him. We saw they posted 69 and my friend tells the scorekeeper that we kept their score and it was 72 and not 69. We did not want to make it an issue but wanted to let them know.

If this was you and your friend what would you do?

In all my years of competitive golf I have never seen someone cheat like this.

diamanared77

I would have told someone and then kicked the cheaters in the balls!!! J/K you did the right thing by not wanting to cause a scene but by letting someone know

bigjohntripod

Did y’all sign their card for a 69? If so, you shouldn’t have brought it to anybody’s attention, because that’s on y’all unfortunately. I’d have taken it to them (people who I suspect cheated and the scoring officials) right after walking off 18 and counting it up.

But...

It was your buddy, at his club, and you gave him the option. I guess he didn’t want to do anything about it, which is understandable (club event/reputation).

What would I do? Exact situation, me being you? Probably the same thing, ask if he wanted to say something. If he didn’t want to say anything, I’d just keep my cool. If he wanted to absolutely say something and pursue a DQ for them, I’d be with it. I also don’t know what the seriousness of the event is. I mean, people should never cheat under any circumstance though 🤷‍♂️

ckay

Would’ve never exchanged the card back in the first place.

In your situation, let the member handle it. Unfortunate though and this is why the guy keeps cheating. He gets away with it.

ekaj

This is the same thing when the 4 man scramble shows up with a 45

rrkman

Would see it all the time in local crappy scrambles. Weird how the group that goes out alone or the 2 groups that are friends and go out together end up shooting 5 strokes better than the next best score.

ForeLeft

I ask them what they got on every single hole, and when signing cards before round is over, make them repeat hole by hole what they got.

I certainly would have said something and asked him to call out his shots on the holes you had a discrepancy.

if you’re going to play competitively and cheat, GTFO

dphatt

This was not a legit event and it was run by the club so there weren’t any scorecard checks or signatures needed. I am just dumbfounded by how someone could change their score by that much and feel good about themselves. My friend emailed me the final results and that team placed 2nd in their flight so I guess telling the scorekeeper didn’t do much good. This is why I always tell people, if you want to know how a person truly is, put them on a golf course and see how they react.

BTW here are some pics of the course. I need to go down and play it again

bogeysandbeers

Scramble = cheating. No way around that. We played in a two-man scramble and they use the Golf Genius app in which only the club member or league member has access to load both team’s scores. Also, F them, definitely did the right thing and who cares if you burn a bridge with losers.