Honesty v. Victory

Jay Busbee writes a Yahoo online column about golf--he sometimes features unusual or heartwarming stories.  He once said in an article--and I have this quote on my desktop--"in golf, honesty is more important than victory."


The gist of the story he profiled today is about a kid who won a junior tournament in Wisconsin.  The kid signs the scorecard to make it official, collects the trophy, and goes home.  While celebrating later, he notices an extra club in his bag.  Golf has some wacky rules.  Carrying an extra club costs two penalty strokes every hole.  He calls the tournament director and sends the trophy back.  Honest kid.

Some of you know my novel is a YA contemporary about a girl who plays golf.  So I read Jay's story about an honest fourteen-year-old boy with interest. If there's ever a sequel to my first novel, it might have a character like this kid.  Read the full story here.

 These are my clubs.  If there are more than 14, I'd be penalized. :)

What would you do?

Honesty vs. Victory

Because my novel is about golf (well, a girl who plays golf), I’ve been paying more attention than usual to golf news.

This story, about Brian Davis, is awesome. Brian is a professional golfer who has never won a major tournament. Over the weekend, he was in a final showdown with Jim Furyk when he called himself on a penalty that no one else saw. It underscores the reputation that golf used to have as the sport of gentlemen (or gentle-people - is that a word?). Regardless of recent news of golfers doing bad things, Brian Davis took the honest route. He knew he’d earned the penalty, and he faced it. Took responsibility.

And Jay Busbee, the writer of the news article I read, gives a great quote: “In golf, honesty is more important than victory.” If only more people felt that way about life in general. It's sort of a twist on the theme of my book - that victory is not the most important thing in the end.

Would you do it? If no one would know? If a million dollars were at stake, would you own your mistake? Brian Davis did - and he's sleeping better tonight because of it.