FOLLOWING THE RULES

Like most people I have been following the news surrounding the controversy over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots football team regarding the use of deflated footballs used in the AFC league championship game.

The discussion all week has gone back and forth about whether it is really cheating, followed by should there be a penalty, and if there is to be one, how big.

What shocks me most is the casual attitude many people have today concerning a clear case of cheating. One argument is there is cheating going on in other sports and, in this case, how bad was it?  We are confronted with steroids, pain medications and other artificial substances that theoretically give one athlete an edge over another. If cheating is to be tolerated at any level why have rules in the first place. If we accept one form of cheating why not accept them all?

The strength and appeal of all sport is its unpredictable outcome coupled with the competitive skills and psychological preparedness of one team versus another.  We all know we feel emotionally better one day versus another and while everything seems to work on those days, there are those other days where the reverse occurs. If one team uses drugs to alter mood it easily gives them an unequal advantage. Is that not cheating? If one team changes the tools of the game, such as the ball pressure, or spit on a baseball without the other team knowing it, is that also not cheating?

Cheating is cheating but it appears far too many people rationalize cheating when it is in their best interest.

There is however one sport that continues to rely on rules, where it’s participants follows them to the letter and hold everyone else accountable. That sport is golf.  

Why are rules in golf important, because everyone plays by them and expects everyone else to do the same?  More so every player is responsible to the entire field of players for any rule violation that takes place. It is the responsibility of every player to notify their competitors of any rules violation and ask them to accept the penalty. As a player we all know that anywhere on the course whether we can see it or not everyone is following the same rules because everyone on the course is essentially a rules official.  

If you play golf with people who cheat, you see it and don’t report it to the officials, you are harming the rest of the field of players. If you play with people who know the rules and still cheat then you can be assured they do so in other areas of their life. Don’t play them in a match and, for sure, don’t play them for money.     

Golf is an emotional game. Feel good and you may play above your ability, feel not so good and you may drop down a stroke or two.  You have to accept which player in you shows up each time you play. You still have to abide by the rules and cannot alter your mood through any artificial device.

Most golfers call violations of the rules on them selves when they make a mistake and for those who don’t there are other playing partners prepared to do so.

Take one of the easiest and seemingly least offensive rules to break: moving the ball. True moving a ball gives the player a better opportunity but measure the actual distance and it is marginal so why make such a deal out of it? Simple: When you control where the ball lies, your confidence goes up. Hitting it becomes far easier than when you have no control over where it lies. Moving a ball before hitting it is one of the most sacrosanct rules in the game. Every player knows it and every player abides by it.

I doubt it is any different when a quarterback alters the weight of a football, especially when their competitors don’t know about it.  The QB does.

This is what rules are about. The game of golf is a game played by millions of people around the world and the same rules exist for all of them. It is a beautiful thing to play a sport that has such integrity. To meet total strangers anywhere in the world, tee it up and know we will play an honest game, follow the same rules and compete on an equal footing. 

The rules of the game make it competitive, honest and true.

Other sports are demeaning themselves by accepting the corrosive elements of cheating. Eventually every sport that does not stand up for integrity in their game will eventually lose their base and their game will decline in value.