Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

A friend of mine was complaining yesterday about a tournament where a young guy with a 15 handicap scored a 73 during a tournament. For those of you unfamiliar with golf handicaps, the typical par for 18 holes (not always, depends on the course) is 72. For someone with a 15 handicap, his net score for that round would be 58. This is pretty unlikely, although certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. At one time, I had scores posted for handicap that ranged from 78 to 108 during a two-month period. Inconsistent swings, especially during significant changes, can cause big deviations in scoring.

But a handicap is based on the best ten scores out of your twenty most recent. And then, only 96% of their average gives you an Index. So, in the case of my broad range (and I don?t have all those scores to look at right now), my ten best were probably in the 78 to 93 range. An average of these would have been somewhere around 86. That would have given me a 13 handicap, more or less. So, on my best day, when I shot a 78, my net score would have been 65. Pretty good! Of course, I would be just as likely to shoot 108, for a net 95?not so good.

According to research by the USGA, the odds against my shooting another 78 is 552 to 1. For that young man with a 15 handicap to score a 73, the odds go off the chart. The USGA didn?t even bother to calculate that high. They stop at 10 under par net (he was at 14 under), and those odds are 37,000 to 1. His odds (doing a little curve fitting and extrapolation) come to about 3 million to one. Certainly less than winning the lottery, and definitely possible. But unlikely.

Personally, I think this guy is a cheater. He falls into the one to two percent of golfers who pad their handicap by only posting their worst scores. And there is only one reason to do this, and that is to gain an unfair advantage in handicapped competition.

Golf has always had the distinction of being a gentleman?s game. You must know and obey the rules. There are no referees. You must call your own penalties. You keep your own score, and sign for that score at the end of your round. It is all about integrity. I think that, more than anything else, is what appeals to me about the game. Yet there are some out there who think they are hustlers, and some willing to violate their own integrity for a few bucks.