The Cheating Thread

[Nagah]

  On 6/28/2019 at 2:30 PM, klineka said:

A little off topic but shouldn't he have technically marked a 2?

I thought that once your ball is in the hole, you're done for that hole, and since it was an accident that he played another ball, that wouldn't be considered practice.

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He claimed that he found “his ball”. It had identical markings to the one in the hole. Titleist Pro V Red 4 with 3 blue dots in a triangle. That’s not a coincidence. 

He cheated when he said that was his ball regardless of the “other ball”being in the hole. If he had of gone back and played a provisional ball from the same spot as his previous shot then that would have counted as a 2. 

[Rulesman]

  On 6/29/2019 at 12:37 PM, Nagah said:

 It had identical markings to the one in the hole. Titleist Pro V Red 4 with 3 blue dots in a triangle. That’s not a coincidence. 

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That is probably one of the most common ball/marking combinations around.

[Missouri Swede]

  On 6/29/2019 at 1:36 PM, Rulesman said:

That is probably one of the most common ball/marking combinations around.

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Especially if it came from his pocket.

[Elmer]

  On 6/26/2019 at 2:35 PM, bkuehn1952 said:

Can't say I have ever caught anyone cheating in a tournament setting.  There have been some dubious situations, like the "miracle silent ricochet" from deep in the woods back to the light rough.  Not sure how it happened but I did not see any sleight of hand.  My experience is that most problems arise from a player being unfamiliar with the Rules and/or honest errors in counting strokes.

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I have played with a few amateur sleight of hand artists. One in particular has never lost a ball. Even when we hear it hit deep into the woods. He will always drop you at your ball and then look for his. Miraculously always finds it. The first couple times, OK, but after that, I was not born yesterday!

What he does is:
1- plays random feral balls, as he works at a course and has an endless supply.
2-Never marks his ball, considers it defacing
3- what ever ball you find, is probably his
4-Keeps a ball in his pocket, when he reaches in the rough, or to move a leaf announces "here it is and places it".
5- never plays out of a bunker. "F that, I dont know whats in there, I am not going to risk my clubs"
6- Writes what he "should" have scored, not what he did. Therefore, lipped puts, chucked chips and duffed tee shots dont count.

Suffice to say I only play with this individual for scrambles, as we mostly use my shots and I control the score card. 

As far as " player being unfamiliar with the Rules", I find that alot of the weekend warrior, retired weekday players know the rules. They just dont care.  They are not playing for money, they are not playing for a championship, they are just out there batting the ball around and enjoying the day with their buddies. 
I have heard it many, many times "I paid to play, I will play the way I want.  I am just out her to have fun".  And really who am I to tell a bunch of old timers, Vietnam vets that they cant improve their lie to even ground.

However, I will say that I have seen more than 1 course (ranger) force a golfer not to adhere to the loss of distance on a lost ball.
Hit a ball, thought it was ok. Got to the spot realized it must have hooked more than thought and went into woods. Never found ball. Went to head back to the tee to take shot, ranger stopped us and said "NO!". There was a group behind us and group behind them. ranger said "what are going to do bump in front of them, they are on the TEE?" "just drop and hit"

So I dropped where I thought it went out, took a stroke. Worst of all, despite that one bad hole, finished with decent score, but couldn't use the score for handicap.

Around here, golf is a dying sport. Private courses are struggling for members, public courses are struggling for players. Most these places just want you playing. They don't care, or enforce the rules. They just want your money until they convert to condos.
This is why there are so many cargo shorts white undershirts on the course!
So we have people who are spending their hard earned $65 to play a 5 hour casual round. The know the rules, they just don't care.

But I always wonder if these same people played Augusta  or St. Andrews, under the watchful eye of patron, would they still cheat?

 

 

[Shindig]

  On 7/15/2019 at 2:30 PM, Elmer said:

So I dropped where I thought it went out, took a stroke. Worst of all, despite that one bad hole, finished with decent score, but couldn't use the score for handicap.

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You don't have to play all 18 holes under the Rules of Golf to post a handicap.  13 is enough;  you would count either your most likely score on the hole had you played by RoG, or a net par, as the score for purposes of handicap. 

Whenever someone asks me if I'm playing "Winter Rules," I tell them I'm playing golf, but as long as we don't have anything riding on the match and they don't take too long, they're welcome to make up some other game and play that instead.

[Missouri Swede]

  On 7/15/2019 at 2:30 PM, Elmer said:

So I dropped where I thought it went out, took a stroke. Worst of all, despite that one bad hole, finished with decent score, but couldn't use the score for handicap.

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In addition to what @Shindig wrote, it sounds like your course should adopt the local rule allowing a drop, if they haven’t already:

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules-hub/rules-modernization/major-changes/golfs-new-rules-stroke-and-distance.html

 

[Groucho Valentine]

In competition play, i don't think ive ever encountered somebody that was just outright cheating. I think thats actually very rare in golf. Most of the situations ive been involved in with a player being DQ'ed were inadvertent. Or just absurdity. Like this one time i saw a guy get DQ'd because he put his umbrella in a rangers cart...  But ive played with plenty of people that play preferred lies at all times and mark down a 5 when they really made a like 8 or something. 😂 

I mostly find that kind of stuff amusing. 

[BC-to-MI]

Had a guy that I played a few times with in college who would consistently place his ball two inches in front of his marker, drop on the wrong side of the cart path, stuff like that. It's just odd because it's stuff that makes very little impact on the round, but is obvious enough that everyone can see it and now thinks considerably less of him.

[Double Mocha Man]

  On 7/15/2019 at 7:42 PM, BC-to-MI said:

Had a guy that I played a few times with in college who would consistently place his ball two inches in front of his marker, drop on the wrong side of the cart path, stuff like that. It's just odd because it's stuff that makes very little impact on the round, but is obvious enough that everyone can see it and now thinks considerably less of him.

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I can't tell you how many times I've had a slick 2-foot downhiller and wanted to mark my ball two feet in front of the marker.

[Cantankerish]

  On 7/15/2019 at 7:54 PM, Double Mocha Man said:

I can't tell you how many times I've had a slick 2-foot downhiller and wanted to mark my ball two feet in front of the marker.

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So, mark it in the hole?  I can't tell if that was your meaning.

[Double Mocha Man]

  On 7/24/2019 at 8:06 PM, Cantankerish said:

So, mark it in the hole?  I can't tell if that was your meaning.

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In the hole, yes!  😄  Though I'm sure my playing partners would get a kick out of seeing my ball 1' 11" closer to the hole, resting on the lip.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Double Mocha Man

[Bonvivant]

I played with a fellow pool (where my real skill lies) player last weekend. Now pool players are not exactly known for their morals, but I couldn't believe how much moving, improving, gimmieing this guy was down for. I had one shot where a tree completely blocked my right handed stance (about 1 foot from trunk). He said, give yourself a club length. I hit a left handed upside down shot (about 4 yards when the hole was 20 yards or so) and he just shook his head. I shot a 111 on the day, and he shot a "85". I bet if you took all his penalty strokes, he shot worse than me on the day. I'm playing with him and 2 other pool players tomorrow. I will be playing by the rules, but who knows what kind of antics they will be up to.

[ChetlovesMer]

  On 8/3/2019 at 6:41 PM, Bonvivant said:

I played with a fellow pool (where my real skill lies) player last weekend. Now pool players are not exactly known for their morals, but I couldn't believe how much moving, improving, gimmieing this guy was down for. I had one shot where a tree completely blocked my right handed stance (about 1 foot from trunk). He said, give yourself a club length. I hit a left handed upside down shot (about 4 yards when the hole was 20 yards or so) and he just shook his head. I shot a 111 on the day, and he shot a "85". I bet if you took all his penalty strokes, he shot worse than me on the day. I'm playing with him and 2 other pool players tomorrow. I will be playing by the rules, but who knows what kind of antics they will be up to.

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Classic. This is why a lot of guys shoot in the 80s, then cant break 100 during a tournament round on the same course. 

[Double Mocha Man]

  On 8/3/2019 at 6:41 PM, Bonvivant said:

I played with a fellow pool (where my real skill lies) player last weekend. Now pool players are not exactly known for their morals, but I couldn't believe how much moving, improving, gimmieing this guy was down for. I had one shot where a tree completely blocked my right handed stance (about 1 foot from trunk). He said, give yourself a club length. I hit a left handed upside down shot (about 4 yards when the hole was 20 yards or so) and he just shook his head. I shot a 111 on the day, and he shot a "85". I bet if you took all his penalty strokes, he shot worse than me on the day. I'm playing with him and 2 other pool players tomorrow. I will be playing by the rules, but who knows what kind of antics they will be up to.

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Let us know how he does tomorrow.  Probably a 72 (101).

[kregan]

  On 6/25/2019 at 2:36 AM, iacas said:

 

The other much more worse thing was that, on the 14th hole, she hit her ball into the woods left of the fairway. I saw it go in with @saevel25 and we went to look for it. We found one ball, another guy found another ball. The second ball was her ball, and the dad came over and was pushing down all the leaves and sticks "near" (clearly improving the LIE of the ball) saying "can we identify her ball?" NO, you can't, you jerk, and that's not how you identify a ball - you don't improve the lie so you can see the "sides" of the ball - you mark, lift, and identify.😛

This same dad would also often walk across a fairway and stop at a point and fold his arms across his chest so his daughter would laser him to know where to hit it and what the distance was. This is a violation of the "advice" rule(s).

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I see this stuff all the time with my son. It is so frustrating but not a lot you can do. 

[Bonvivant]

  On 8/4/2019 at 12:56 AM, Double Mocha Man said:

Let us know how he does tomorrow.  Probably a 72 (101).

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He wasn't the worst offender today. The guy that thinks he is the best said his score was 5-7 on holes where it was 8-10. It's not worth the fight of calling him out. He carded a 90 that was probably closer to a 120. The other guy that I hadn't played with before playing high school golf, and was generally tame. He had an honest 10 on holes 1 and 18 and still managed a 91 on card. This was probably closer to 100 in reality but he played well with a couple of legit birds and a good deal of legit pars. The guy I was talking about in the first post carded an 86 (probably close to 100 as well). I shot a 96, which I was quite happy with for hitting 4i off of tees again (course was 6000 yards). I just let them do what they want and play by the rules. Frustrating, but no money is involved so it isn't a big issue. They are gamblers (pool players rarely aren't), but if they asked me to next time it would be a no for me.

[Double Mocha Man]

  On 8/5/2019 at 12:33 AM, Bonvivant said:

He wasn't the worst offender today. The guy that thinks he is the best said his score was 5-7 on holes where it was 8-10. It's not worth the fight of calling him out. He carded a 90 that was probably closer to a 120. The other guy that I hadn't played with before playing high school golf, and was generally tame. He had an honest 10 on holes 1 and 18 and still managed a 91 on card. This was probably closer to 100 in reality but he played well with a couple of legit birds and a good deal of legit pars. The guy I was talking about in the first post carded an 86 (probably close to 100 as well). I shot a 96, which I was quite happy with for hitting 4i off of tees again (course was 6000 yards). I just let them do what they want and play by the rules. Frustrating, but no money is involved so it isn't a big issue. They are gamblers (pool players rarely aren't), but if they asked me to next time it would be a no for me.

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Thank you for the follow up.  Sounds like you actually beat all these guys.  Do he tell you he had a 5-7 with a straight face, when he really had an 8-10?

Edited August 5, 2019 by Double Mocha Man

[Bonvivant]

  On 8/5/2019 at 12:39 AM, Double Mocha Man said:

Thank you for the follow up.  Sounds like you actually beat all these guys.  Do he tell you he had a 5-7 with a straight face, when he really had an 8-10?

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Of course...cause he's the best. The guy I was riding with (the one I played with before) commented to me about it and I pretty much just deadpanned a "yeah". He knows that I play strictly by the rules, and he knows that he doesn't so there wasn't much response. Maybe he is starting to realize he should be more honest, but to these guys score means so much, and taking a 100+ score would be grounds for them to quit the game entirely, even though they do this every time out in reality.