Magic Pencil to Cool Heels for Nine Months

A member of a North Dublin golf club has been suspended by for 9 months, from all competitive golf. The chap in question plays off a 1 handicap, yet was reportedly caught cheating at the back end of last season.

The incident happened at during a singles stableford competition, where a playing partner marked and signed off on his score of 28 points. Later however, it was noticed that his card had been submitted bearing a 38 points score, and the player had finished second in the competition that day.

It is thought that the dishonest actions were an attempt to maintain a low enough handicap to gain entry to some of Irelands most elite amateur championships, or possibly to impress enough to obtain a golf scholarship. Strangely, the player had also entered his hcandicap on the card as +1, rather than 1.

I have to admit, while it is a dreadful situation, 9 months is extremely harsh. I think that a ban from GUI Cups, Shields & Championships would have sufficiently frightened the life out of the guy, and sent a message to others doing it, or thinking about doing it. That said, the people you feel for are those scrapping, fairly, to get to the handicap level which will gain them entry to the North, South, East and West of Ireland C'ships. Yet guys like this, dodging .1s, are keeping them out.

Every year, we see the scores in the championships which have a stroke play element, and every year there is a good 30% of the field that plays a level of golf far, far below what one would expect from a field of players no higher than 1 or 2. Of course there are genuine reasons for this also, but click this (from last year's West of Ireland C'ship), scroll to the bottom and see some of the scores for yourself.

Sure there's some great golfers in there who had a bad couple of days. And of course there's some guys who play to a higher level on their home course, and find the links a different kettle of fish - that's fine too. But that can't be the case for all of them, not with scores that high. We can only hope that cheating the handicap system is not a widespread issue, but me thinks our friend in North Dublin is not alone either.