A few years ago I penned a column opining on the primary difference between male and female golfers. In my view, it’s pretty simple: men cheat more.
In light of recent events concerning one J.P. Hayes, I take it all back.
If you’ve been living under the proverbial rock, Hayes is a golf pro who’s been trying to earn his Tour card for next year. At Q-school last week, he was doing just fine until he realized, after finishing a par 3, that he had played a ball other than the type he’d started his round with.
Being the upstanding golf citizen that he is, he called a two-stroke penalty on himself. No fun, but even with the penalty he was still in contention for making it to the final round of Q-school.
But the story doesn’t end there. Later in his hotel room, he realized with a start that the errant ball wasn’t just the wrong model?it was illegal.
“It was a Titleist prototype, and somehow it had gotten into my bag,” Hayes explained later. “It had been four weeks since Titleist gave me some prototype balls and I tested them. I have no idea or why it was still in there.”
What’s an upstanding golf citizen to do? Disqualify himself.
So a guy who really, really needed to earn that Tour card just disqualified himself from the only means by which he can earn that Tour card, by pointing out an error that frankly, no one in the world would ever have known about otherwise.
Hayes has my respect, no question. He also has a few people wondering if he’s completely batfreaking insane. But he understands what those kinds of people don’t: in golf, we don’t have anyone looking over our shoulders calling the shots and the fouls. In golf, we call them ourselves. We are our own referees.
The price for honesty in this case was awfully high?a PGA Tour card. But Hayes would rightly argue that it wasn’t being honest that cost him the card?it was playing an illegal ball.
When it comes to integrity, tournament golf demands a high standard, and J.P. Hayes just met it.
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4 comments
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§ Shanks®
said on : 11/24/08 @ 10:34
Can't, for the life of me, imagine how the ball got in his bag - unless drinking was involved. Think about it. The Titleist Rep gives him trays, bags or boxes of the prototype to test. He takes them to the range and hits 50, 100 or more. Then what? It's not like Hayes is some muni hacker who steals the "good" range balls. Yep, had to be booze. -
§ Speedcat Hollydale said on : 12/05/08 @ 17:37
I have a lot of respect for JP ... and wonder if I could have had as much integrity.
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§ Dave said on : 12/11/08 @ 07:39
He's commendably honest, we've got to give him that. But golf is supposed to be a game of honesty. Hayes, having being a professional golfer for almost twenty years now (two victories, over $7 million won in prize money), probably knows the game better than any of us ever will. I doubt he considered even for a moment not disqualifying himself.
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§ fix my swing said on : 10/21/09 @ 21:04
There is a difference but not a large gap.
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