Have you ever played tournament golf? Or do you just hunt...

Decades ago, I was in the Michigan Open Golf Tournament.  I took 8 strokes on the first hole and spent the next 17 just trying to get back to even. I did but didn't win or even place but there was a satisfaction in it because of the 8 strokes on the first hole, 2 were a penalty that I called on myself.  I could have gotten away with it but that isn't how the game is played.  The rules are as much a part of the game as how you hit the ball...they are the other player so to speak. 

Professional golf is a game that is, skill wise, unfamiliar to most of us because so few can play at that level. It is a job with endless practice and muscle memory measured in feet and inches.  It is a game measured in honor and doing the right thing...always doing the right thing.  It is above all, at the highest level, an exercise in decency.

A few weeks back a professional golfer finished his round and signed his card and folks watching on TV started calling in having noted that the golfer did something wrong and should have called a penalty on himself but, and this is a completely honest mistake, didn't. The penalty was a shot or two and he still would have won the tournament. Instead he was disqualified for signing an incorrect score card. I'm sure he was sad and disheartened but he also was very quick to point out that the penalty was correct and took his lumps without question.

Without question.  An interesting idea. When you do something wrong and get your wrist slapped you should take it without question.  If you are wrongly accused then you have something to say and it becomes then, how you say it. Otherwise you have nothing.

Hear that Sarah?