It’s funny how the culture differs from sport to sport in this win at any cost world of ours. I watch a baseball game and hear the phrase “stealing signs” and there are spitball pitchers in the Hall of Fame. “If you ain’t cheating’ you ain’t tryin’” is a common idiom on the diamond.
In football we are still feeling the effects of the original “SpyGate” and of course Tommy Boy and his Patriots gave us “Deflategate.” In soccer and basketball taking a flop to fake a foul is so common there are penalties for that now and in hockey if a player isn’t cheap shotting his opponent he won’t be in the big leagues too long.
Kate Wynja
And then we come to golf…ah, that’s a horse of a different color. In a game where self-policing is ingrained from the start and we have no umpire or referee standing over our shoulder we have a bit of a different culture. Now, we all would be naive to think that there isn’t some level of cheating, or bending the rules at every level of the game but the following story seems to be the rule more than the exception.
In a high school state championship match in South Dakota, Kate Wynja had easily won her match and with it the championship for her team. But after signing her scorecard and leaving the scorers area she realized she had mistakenly given herself a 4 instead of the 5 she actually scored on the eighteenth.
The scoring had been completed and they were posting the winners and she could have walked away with the trophy and the championship. But that’s why golf is different…or at least why it is supposed to be. Honesty and integrity is as much a part of the game as a chip or a putt. And Kate Wynja not only learned the physical aspects of this game well she learned the moral aspects too.
She knew the consequences of an incorrect scorecard: disqualification and she and her team would lose the championship. She went to her coach and then to the officials and told them what had happened and they had no choice but to disqualify her from the tournament and her team then finished second rather than winning the championship.
Now, the rules are harsh for this and whether they are too arbitrary is a debate for another day but this is why golf is different and why we should revel in that difference.
Here was a high school senior making a devastating choice for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. In a world where it seems that the main goal of many is to “get over” or take advantage of situations at any cost Kate Wynja showed her true grit.
Honesty and integrity do have a place in our sports and not just in our high schools. Every professional athlete could take a lesson from Kate.
Kudos to her, her coach and her team.
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