Dan Camilli, a Top Contributor to Seniors Who Golf shares his unique perspective on cheating in golf.
Intro
We’ve all thought about it. Maybe, even actually done it. Cheat at golf.
Perhaps it was posting a five on your card when you had a snowman. Or maybe something more egregious like playing an illegal ball, in search of a few extra yards off the tee; or maybe even bagging a non-conforming club.
Those of us who play in leagues are all too familiar with persistent rumors about the guy who awards himself five-foot gimme putts. It’s often an open yet unspoken secret in all too many leagues.
Cheating in Golf
Cheating. It’s uncomfortable to even think about and it’s rarely the topic of 19th hole conversation.
Nobody wants to be that guy or gal who rats someone out and we fear being ostracized by the group.
We tell ourselves that we’re just being a “good sport “yet we also know that our silence is complicity, and it gnaws away at our conscience as we “go along to get along”.
Consequently, we become participants in a collective immorality which enforces conformity according to Ethicist Rinehold Niebur. Individual silence in the presence of unethical conduct is the price of group membership.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that groups are more concerned with power than morality. For they wield the power of membership – of belonging. And we fear being left out. So, we say nothing, smile and try to ignore it.
We tell ourselves that cheating reflects poorly on the cheater and that’s indeed true.
After all, what kind of person needs to cheat over a five-dollar skin? Or a closest to the pin?
But how does it reflect upon those who know about cheaters yet remain silent? How do we square that circle?
We convince ourselves that calling out the cheater would be too disruptive to the group. We tell ourselves that we’re doing what’s best for the group. Yet our conscience gnaws away at us, and we dislike ourselves for our silence.
“Groups promote anonymity, diminish personal responsibility and encourage reframing harmful actions as ‘necessary for the greater good’ “according to MIT Researcher Mina Cikara, who studies group behavior.
Golf, perhaps more than other sports, often likes to present itself as an exceptionally ethical endeavor, “A Gentleman’s Game”, in which participants police and even call penalties on themselves and, to an extent, this is true. But living in a decidedly imperfect world, this is certainly not always the case.
So, what does one do about it?
“Golf is fundamentally about being honest”, says actor and avid golfer Martin Sheen, “I see people hit eight and tell me they shot five. I never say a word. It’s a reminder to me of what is at stake.“
“A Gentleman’s Game”? Aspirationally, perhaps. But cheating and the subsequent ethical dilemmas it poses for others are, indeed, very real. Our experience teaches us that golf doesn’t build character so much as reveal it.
Bio
Dan Camilli, a Top Contributor to Seniors Who Golf, is a retired Teacher and Professor of History, Philosophy and Humanities and the author of Tee Ceremony: A Cosmic Duffer’s Companion to the Ancient Game of Golf. (2015) Website: DanCamilli.com
Join the conversation today! Sign up for our group newsletter below.
Happened often in a group I was in, so I’m finding another group. Everyone should play by the same set of rules, in my opinion.