golf

Ethics Hero: P.G.A. Golfer Brian Davis

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

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. Continue reading →

Tiger Woods’ Mother in the Ethics Rough

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“You know what? I’m so proud to be his mother. Period. This thing, it teaches him, just like golf. When he changes a swing… he wants to get better… He will start getting better… it’s just like that. Golf is just like life, when you make a mistake, you learn from your mistake and move on stronger. That’s the way he is. As a human being everyone has faults, makes mistakes and sins. We all do. But, we move on when we make a mistake and learn from it. I am upset the way media treated him like he’s a criminal…he didn’t kill anybody, he didn’t do anything illegal… They’ve being carrying on from thanksgiving until now, that’s not right! People don’t understand that Tiger has a very good heart and soul. Sometimes I think there is a complete double standard… He tried to improve himself. The tabloids and newspapers just killed him, held him back.. To me it looked like a double standard…When you make a mistake you learn from it and move on, that’s the way life is, that’s a human being. We’re not God, and he never claimed he was God. If anyone tells me to condemn him, I say look at yourself first.. .. I would … look in their eyes and tell them you’re not God!  This thing is a family matter… It’s not easy to be him. … (People) go to work 8 to 5 and go home to have a life with the family. Tiger can’t do that.”

—————Katilda Woods, Tiger’s mother, in remarks to the press following Woods’ statement and apology today, his first public appearance since a series of revelations about his multiple affairs.

Where to begin? I’m glad Mrs. Woods is proud of her son. That’s what mothers are for, in times like these. If only she had stopped there, before she plunged deep into the ethics rough. For example, I think Tiger’s been swinging enough, don’t you?

But Mrs. Woods decided to promote three of my least favorite rationalizations for terrible conduct, and then added one I had neglected.  Now that she mentions it, however, I hate that one too. Continue reading →

Of Cheating, Loopholes, Fairness and Golf

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

One of the problems with assessing fairness in sports is that the definition  of “cheating” varies according to what game is involved.  In some sports, anything not specifically outlawed is fair. In other sports, the “spirit of sportsmanship” takes precedence over mere rules. Golf is one of the latter, a sport that still regards itself as refined and gentlemanly.  Now a controversy has erupted that requires an assessment of whether one can cheat in professional golf while obeying the rules. Continue reading →

More Ethics Lessons from Tiger and His Friends

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The fact that a story is tabloid fodder doesn’t  mean  it can’t carry ethical wisdom along with its titillation content. As the number of alleged Woods mistresses continues to climb ( fifteen, the last I checked, but that was three hours ago), the Woods saga is casting light on more ethics issues than most. Such as… Continue reading →

Tiger Woods Ethics, Part I: Betrayal’s Not for Heroes

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I wasn’t planning on commenting on the Tiger Woods soap opera. Its ethical lessons seemed obvious, and merely xeroxed themes that I have, in the eyes of some, thumped to death. I do feel that the apparent glee with which some in the sports media have attacked Woods for revealing his true character is damning…of them. Golf’s Golden Child finally outed himself as a phony “good guy” and a classic case of the prodigy who won’t or can’t grow up, a man who has been carrying on multiple adulterous affairs while using his bottomless checkbook to cover his tracks. It seems that many reporters have long known that Tiger’s public image was a fraud, and  had chafed over the adulation heaped on him as they witnessed the golfer being mean, petty and boorish, often to them. Now these journalists feel it is “safe” to skewer Woods, and are doing so with gusto. Cowards. They were parties to a mass public deception, and their duty was to let us know Tiger was playing us for suckers when they knew it, not when his lies became National Enquirer headlines.

As for Tiger’s own conduct, however, I presumed most could see the ethics issues clearly. Then the apologists and rationalizers started writing their columns. Continue reading →