Deerwood Country Club. Kingwood, Texas. PGA golfer J.P. Hayes. Wrong ball. Wrong ball twice.
In a sport where there are no referees, no umpires, no governing officials running up and down the course blowing whistles and throwing yellow rags to keep up with whether play is fair or foul, golfers, from their earliest training, are taught to self-report their mistakes.
Hayes was competing in the first stage of a PGA qualifying tournament when he made a mistake that violated PGA rules of play. On the 12th tee, Hayes's caddie tossed him a ball to begin play. Hayes hit his tee shot and another shot to chip onto the green before he realized that the ball was not the same model ball with which he had started the round.
As a non-golfer, I don't really see why it would have been such an issue. But in golf, as in every sport, there are rules for playing the game. If you want to play fairly and win fairly, you follow those rules.
In professional golf, you must play an entire round with the same model ball. When Hayes realized his mistake, he reported it to a rules official, after which he was given a mandated two-stroke penalty. Play resumed and Hayes finished his round.
That evening, Hayes realized that the second ball he had used may not have been on the PGA-approved golf ball list. Such an error would disqualify him from the competition and cost him a 2009 PGA Tour card. Time for a decision. According to all reports, Hayes had only one decision to make - how quickly to call a PGA official.
"It was my mistake," Hayes said. "I had no choice but to take my medicine."
Much has been made over Hayes's decision to self-report a second time. Writers have hailed him as honorable, truthful, self-sacrificing, a man of deep integrity. Listen to Hayes's words again: "It was my mistake. I had no choice but to take my medicine."
I learn about golf from my brother Deck, a golf professional over in Dalton, Ga. He's loved the game since he was a young boy, and though our mother feared he would never be able to make a living at it, he has done exactly that and he has done it well. Deck tells me that it's more unusual for a golfer to withhold a self-report than it is for one to follow through with one.
"I learned from my earliest playing days that golf is a sport of individual honor and integrity. It's a philosophy that every coach teaches and every player learns," he said. "Self-reporting is an everyday experience in the game of golf. Cheating has always been the exception."
He went on to tell me that being honorable in the game of golf is normal behavior. It is an expectation of the sport that participants are men and women of integrity "not exaggerated integrity" simple and unequivocal integrity, a value that is sorely missing in our culture of greed, exploitation and self-indulgence.
There are many directions that I could take this column because there's a wealth of contemplative ideas in J.P. Hayes's experience. What strikes me, however, is his response to the entire incident. After taking responsibility for his mistakes and sacrificing a year of eligibility for thousands of prize dollars, Hayes responds: "It's not the end of the world. It will be fine. It is fine."
Mistakes can cost us dearly, even minor ones. They can also teach us to put our lives into perspectives larger than self. It seems to me that J.P. Hayes is a man who views his life and worth from a healthy perspective. It goes way beyond the game of golf. And so it should.
Harris Murray is director of library services at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. She can be reached by e-mail at writeharris55@yahoo.com.