Good News from the World of Sports

For a change.

Golf is different from other sports. Other sports have umpires and referees. You try to gain any advantage that you can, and if the officials catch you, you get penalized. If they don't, well, you've gained a little advantage, and maybe helped your team. What you're doing may be technically illegal, but within the framework of the contest itself, it's ethical. (Unfortunately, that attitude sometimes extends off the field -- steroids, blood doping, etc.)

But golf is different. The ethics of golf say that you call a penalty on yourself, even if no one else would know, and even if it makes you less likely to win.

Last week we heard a story on NPR about Tiger Woods rejoining the tour. (He lost in his second match.) The story was reported by sportswriter John Feinstein, who has written many books, including one about the Q School (where golfers try to qualify for the lucrative PGA tour).


Okay, so there's this golfer, J. P. Hayes. He was on the tour for a few years, din't win too much money. He did so poorly that he lost the right to play on tour, and he has to go to the Q school to try to get back on.

After he played his round, where he did well enough to advance on to the next round, hwe realized that the golf ball he had used was not yet approved by the PGA. If he tells anyone, he'll be disqualifed, and he'll have to wait at least another year to qualify. What does he do. Well, it's a no-brainer for him.

Hayes said it never occurred to him to keep his mouth shut, even though he was the only person to know he had used an illegal ball. "I guess I had hoped that the penalty wasn't going to be what it was, that for some reason there was something in the rules, a special circumstance kind of thing, and I was just hoping and praying that that was going to be the case,'' he said. "But it never occurred to me not to bring this to light and get the right ruling. I don't think anyone would have known, but I would have known.''

And so he was disqualified, and the story ends there. Except it doesn't. After a while, the Media got ahold of the story, first Mike and Mike, a radio show on ESPN. (Full dusclosure: I once had a haircut with Mike Golic.) And then good things started happening for J. P. Hayes. He's been getting invitations to play in tournaments, by sponsors who were imprssed by his ethics and integrity. (Here's one full version of the story.)

So we hear a l ot about the A-Rods and Floyd Landises, but there are honest athletes out there, too.