Cheating

First topic message reminder :

Just thought i'd open this up for people to vent and let us know their experiences.

Recently we've had SaltmanGate. There has been the Vijay issue resurfacing in recent months and now its Gary Player and the Lytham thing raising it's head agai.

So I thought I'd see what experiences you've had of cheats and cheating. I'll open up with this one.

When I was a junior we had a guy that it was said he could hit a ball so hard the number would change! If he hit it in the rough bizarrely always had a clear shot at the green and if he went in a bunker his ball always sat up! he was also equiped with the magic counter where a 5 was a 4 etc.... Whenever he played junior league matches opponents would complain (rightly so) and he never won a match..He was named Junior club champion one year thanks to his magic of all the above and this meant he gained entry to the mens club championship where he came unstuck and low and behold his 3 handicap was put under revision by county and when he did his 3 cards with a county marker they revised his handicap to 10! after that he played no more than a dozen competitive rounds of which i played half with him (luck of the draw i'm told, more likely I was the only one with the front to take him to task) and he never shot below his 10handicap. Realising no-one wanted to play with him and that he wasn't the player he'd made everyone believe he was he gave up the game. Why was he never brought to taks earlier for his crimes... He was the junior organisers son....

Thats one of my experiences so over to you guys

I played another match this week when we were on our 18th, which has a laterial water hazard long and right, our opponent pushed his approach onto the bridge, which crosses it. The bridge is marked so if it stops on the bridge then it is effectively in the hazard, but in this case it was on the end of the bridge not in in the hazard but obstructed by the little bridge wall.

We scanned the card for the local rule, he said it was course furniture, i said it was an integral part of the course, (there is no associated footpath). He took a drop in any case and his partner secured a half so it didn't matter...

But given it was not mentioned in the local rules as course furniture along with tee markers, ball washers etc and the majority of the bridge is actually a hazard, i thought i was pretty difficult to argue it wasn't an integral part of the course. If was course furniture, the whole thing would be, not just the bit not designated a hazard... cheeky sod!

Rossa wrote:The first 2 are harsh...

1) Don't you get relief from burrows and the like?
2) I guess it your word against his - sounds like a Kumquat to me.
3) Is unfortunate but its ultimately your responsibility to check your playing the correct ball - if you had checked after he had played but before you had, then you could have sent the offending player to retrieve your ball

Rossa, yes fully accept that and probably didn't qualify the explanation fully. I only stated that weather conditions were poor, they were in fact dire with torrential rain and balls were plugging. The offending ball was plugged and muddy, and had no reason to even suspect I was using the wrong ball - there was only one ball and i was the only player not yet hit a 2nd shot.

There are some daft rules - but I like the fact that there are rules and people (mostly) abide by them. Pros are terrific examples (mostly) hence the fact that transgressions are remembered for so long. I used to be a football nut - but got so kumquated off at the lying and cheating that goes on I haven't watched a game for several years. BTW I haven't missed it and my language has improved!! Far less swearing at the TV and used the season ticket money to join a second golf club - how smug am I!!!!!
By all means refresh the rules of golf - but we should all do everything possible to abide them.

Doc wrote:I've had 3 occasions that I've been called on rules, and all still wrankle with me. All 3 times were in club knockouts or a QC, and i must be the most unlucky bloke in the world.

1) playing against a 'dodgy' committee member i hit my approach into a ditch 20 yards short of the green. The ball had got itself half wedged into a rabbit hole and a large stone almost covered it, and not wanting to do anything dodgy, I asked him what the ruling was, as I was unsure. he told me I had to play it from where it lay. It was an imposible ask and knew the ball would just go deeper down the hole. I was right and then he told me it was now unplayable so needed to take a drop. Found out later the ball should have been declared unplayable straight away.

2) My 2nd year at the club and back in the club knockout against the president. Hit my approach into a greenside bunker and got it out and close, only to be called for touching the sand on takeaway. I swear i didn't but he's the president and was in danger of being beaten. It was wet sand, no marks and deffinatley no advantage gained even if I had inadvertantly touched the sand.

In response to number 1 - if the ditch that you hit your ball into was marked as a hazard - either a water hazard or a lateral water hazard, then you weren't entitled to a free drop. You should have either played it, or declared it unplayable. You say the ditch was 20 yards short of the green, so I'm pretty sure it would have been marked in some way. So that decision was probably correct. See rule 25-1 b.

number 2 - whether you touch the sand on your backswing is a question of fact. You either did or didn't. However harsh it seems, your opponent or partner is always better placed to say whether you touched the sand, and unfortunately you have to accept what they say. As you say, it's doubly frustrating because touching the sand isn't likely to give you any advantage, but you have to accept it.

With regard to the point about hitting opponents' bags, yes, there was a penalty for that at one time. In my lifetime, it's been a penalty to hit your own bag, then a penalty to hit your opponents' bag, then no penalty for hitting anyone's bag, then a penalty for hitting your own bag again. It's the rule that's been changed most often I think. By the way, I'm not that old...

Incidentally, as someone said, you can elect to hit again if you hit your opponents' bag. HOWEVER you have to decide that's what you are going to do before ANYONE hits another shot. I played in a 4BBB match where one of our opponents hit my bag. He correctly decided he could cancel the stroke and play again, but while he was getting another ball his partner played (to save time); sadly the first guy lost his chance to play again.

I cocked up in the last medal I played. I hadn't intentionally meant to test the sand, but had unwittingly brushed over where I had retrieved the rake before removing it from the bunker ready to make good the bunker having played my shot out from over the other side. Counts as 'testing the sand' and I think MidgetMac was penalised for doing the same thing. Dems da rules, but it seems slightly harsh. You get more idea of the depth and consistency of the sand by digging your feet in than quickly sweeping a rake across the footmark. I now don't touch the rake at until until having played.

In a club match a player from the the visiting club deliberately overhit a downhill putt to strike the bag of one of our team. He was one down playing the 17th and won 18th as our guy was shaking with anger.
Very subdued meal afterwards and his club were struck off our fixture list.

I had better explain that!
In those days it was loss of hole if your opponent hit your equipment.

It's not in the rule book but I think someone who intentionally wears you down mentally with a constant barrage of put-you-down comments is tantamount to cheating.
I know of someone who will talk incessantly about, how you should have hit a shot, your grips not right, you didn't want to do that, quips, that after 5 or 6 holes your so wound up thinking about what he's talking about that your own game goes to pot. You can tell him to shut the f*** up, but it makes no difference, he just goes on and on and on.

4Putt my stock reply to those sort of idiots that ply that sort of gamesmanship andit gets under there skin so puts them off and not you is one of the following "so your a 23 handicapper (handicap dependant of course) when did you become good enough to give tips of have you not seen the state of your own game recently! That usually works a treat but my personal favourite retort to these idiots is "if I wanted to hear from an bum I'd fart"

Awful lot of dropping in the wrong place goes on probably lack of knowledge.
Invited to play at a mates club with him and another guy who completely disregarded the rules.Dropped the ball out in the fairway,miscounted etc.Nothing serious on the game but we had a beer and the other fella left.When I enquired what he did my friend replied 'hes the assistant chief constable'

Have played with a winner of the QPM (Queen's Police Medal) and he's one of the worst counters in the world. One chap once refused to sign his card due to certain "irregularities"!

I do believe that a guy from my 2nd Club did rather well at the recent Bournemouth open. He has been in a reasonably good run of form. Unfortunately he forgot to check the CSS of the last club event he played in before Bournemouth. It was a bit higher than the norm so unbeknown to him he'd actually been cut so declared the wrong handicap.

Lesson to all who are not accustomed to playing Opens....ALWAYS make sure you KNOW you're exact handicap, NEVER assume. In his case I'd say it was more naivety than cheating.