I don’t follow golf, but if this sort of thing happens very often, I may have to become a fan…in spite of Tiger Woods.

P.G.A. tour veteran Brian Davis was facing Jim Furyk in a playoff at the Verizon Heritage, and trying to finally win a P.G.A. event. His approach shot to the first hole in the playoff bounced off the green and landed in the rough. When Davis attempted to knock the ball back up to the green, his club barely swiped a weed on his backswing. The rules of tournament golf decree that touching anything lying around the ball during a player’s backswing violates  the prohibition against moving loose obstacles or impediments to a shot. The required penalty: two strokes, enough to guarantee that David would lose the play-off and his best, maybe only, chance for PGA glory, not to mention a seven figure prize.

Davis may have been the only one to notice the infraction, but golf is a game that calls for self-reporting. That’s what he did: he called the violation on himself, and made himself a loser.

“It was one of those things I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye,” Davis said. “And I thought we’d check on TV, and indeed there was movement.” Davis called over a rules official, who conferred with television replays and confirmed the movement, which was only visible on slow-motion. Taking the penalty, Davis congratulated Furyk on his victory.

Being honest and playing strictly by the rules of one of the few remaining sports with an honor system, Davis cost himself about $400, 000 (the difference between first and second place prize-money), but preserved his sport’s integrity, and also his own.