"You may not want to hear this, but golf at every level is rife with cheating."

/

In light of the recently off-radar incident involving Elliot Saltman, John Huggan devotes his Scotland and On Sunday column to the oddity of non-cheaters in golf suffering penalties while elite players seem exempt from penalty for outright cheating.

You'll never read the names of those involved though. Officialdom doesn't want you to know who they are (and the legal implications of publicly exposing the culprits don't help either). Some, in fact, are really quite famous. One multiple major champion, by way of example, is a notorious cheat and the subject of any number of head-shaking locker room tales. Ryder Cup players are not immune either. At least one is tainted forever by his serial cheating. And there are others, many of whom have won events through the most dubious of methods.

Every year it goes on and on, right up to the present day. During this past season on the European Tour there was at least one instance where a pro, outraged by the behaviour of his playing companion, refused to sign that fellow competitor's card. Not that anything came of it. In such instances, tour officials invariably take it upon themselves to attest the disputed numbers.

And that's the problem. Why is it that the innocent seem to be persecuted to the nth degree by the rules while the guilty are protected?

"The year 2010 will not be remembered for any particular playing accomplishment but rather for Dustin Johnson failing to realize he was sharing a bunker with dozens of spectators who had nowhere else to go on a depraved course that led mobs into hazards."

/
I suspect that Frank Hannigan would just point us to his timelier-than-ever Golf Digest story after some of the rules-related groveling following Ian Poulter's unfortunate "lucky" coin incident Sunday.
Read More

“I’m an idiot."

/

At least Ryuji Imada was honest about his inability to read the local rule sheet at the Mission Hills Star Trophy, costing him 26 penalty strokes and a chance at the lead. Andrew Both reports:

Due to the soft state of the Blackstone course, players were allowed to lift, clean and place their balls. Imada assumed this meant within one club length of the original position, as is standard procedure on the PGA Tour.

However, the European and Asian Tours use the length of one scorecard as a measurement. It wasn’t until the 12th hole that fellow competitor Danny Lee noticed Imada was breaking the rule and informed him.

Better late than never!

This is fun too:

Imada wasn’t the only player to screw up. Nick Faldo was disqualified for picking up his ball after missing a putt at the eighth hole.

Evidently, he forgot that the pro-celebrity format includes a professional only competition. He didn’t realize the mistake until after teeing off at the next hole by which time it was too late to rectify.

“Any discussion about cheating in the situation that arose last week with players Shi Hyun Ahn and Il Mi Chung is irresponsible."

/

Beth Ann Baldry follows up with Shi Hyun Ahn's agent and gets a strong statement from the LPGA Tour on accusations of cheating by Ahn and Il Mi Chung. Of course, the identity of Ahn's caddie, who started the speculation, remains a mystery. Which really doesn't help clear this up entirely.