Why Do People Cheat in Golf? (Most Common Reasons)

Golf is a sport where cheating is heavily discouraged. Each golfer must maintain a fair and honest playing field by following the rules and being truthful – even if it’s a disadvantage to their score. However, if you’ve been playing long enough, you’ve likely come across a cheater.

Numerous reasons influence people to cheat at golf. If you are frustrated at your friend or playing partner for cheating and want to understand their motives, this article is for you. In this blog post, I’ll describe the most common reasons golfers cheat.

How to Handle a Friend Who Cheats at Golf

Avoid Failure

Golfers who equate high scores to personal failure want to avoid poor performances. These players are motivated more by the fear of collapse than the drive for success.

Being conscious of avoiding embarrassment and failure on the golf course can trigger golfers to set aside their integrity and implement cheating behaviors.

Keep Up with Their Friends

Each golfing group has its best players and its worst players. For those who find themselves lower on the totem pole, it may not seem like a big deal to bend the rules as their scores still won’t be as low as their playing partners. 

Less experienced golfers may struggle to keep up with their more skilled friends on the golf course. Taking mulligans, fixing the ball’s lie, or shaving a stroke here and there are ways to bridge the gap.

Highly Competitive

The level of competitiveness differs from one golfer to another. Some golfers don’t view their playing partners as competition. These golfers want their friends to succeed, even if it means losing themselves. These players aren’t overly competitive with other golfers.

Some golfers are wildly competitive. These players feel immense pressure to beat their playing partners, leading them to compromise their integrity. Highly competitive golfers occasionally resort to cheating in hopes of beating their friends.

Unrealistic Expectations

Each time we golfers tee it up, we have expectations on how we’ll play. Some golfers have healthy expectations. These players know how well and how poorly they can play. They understand that performance can vary from round to round, and poor performance is just a natural aspect of the game. 

Inversely, some golfers have unrealistic expectations for themselves. They are focused on their all-time lowest score and expect to play that well each time. These players anticipate their best, and when they often don’t reach that expectation, they feel discouraged. 

Golfers fixated on career-best rounds and unrealistic expectations may cheat to meet them. Cheating can help protect players’ reputations.

Constant Temptations

There are countless instances and situations during a round of golf that can tempt golfers to cheat. Whether it’s a ball that’s a foot outside the out-of-bounds stakes, a ball that’s slightly behind a tree, or a ball in a plugged lie, cheating can often lead to better outcomes with minimal effort.

Some golfers have discipline to follow the rules and won’t cheat even if no one is watching. Unfortunately, depending on the situation, some golfers are too tempted and will cheat. 

Playing golf can be complicated compared to other sports due to the complexity of its rules. Each course, hole, and area where a ball could end up can vary. For example, each basketball and football game is played on a standard-size surface with clearly established boundaries, lines, and areas. These sports are also played as a team, which impacts the decisions and opportunities to cheat. 

Golf, on the other hand, is an individual sport with tons of variability. There isn’t a referee watching each player on each shot. Players are responsible for reporting any penalties they incur during the game. Admitting a penalty that puts you at a disadvantage is not always an easy task.

Identity Issues

Some golfers associate much of their identity with the game of golf. Personally, when I perform well, it usually positively impacts the rest of my day. Everything tends to be a little better when I’m playing well. Food tastes better, music sounds better, and horrible drivers on the way home from the golf course don’t bother me as much. You get the point.

However, when some golfers play poorly, it drastically impacts their identity. Individuals may cheat to maintain a positive self-image as skilled golfers. These players view their golfing identity as more important than the integrity of the game.

Ultimately, ego and pride may drive golfers to cheat to maintain their self-image and avoid the shame of a poor performance.

Unknowingly Break the Rules

There are tons of nuances and rules in golf. There are so many rules that there are on-course rules officials during professional matches. Many professional golfers don’t even know all the rules of golf, and there are situations every year that cause a rules official to make the proper decision.

New and inexperienced golfers are bound to be misinformed about some of golf’s rules and will unknowingly cheat due to their lack of knowledge. Whether they ground the club in a bunker, tee their ball in front of markers, or adjust their lie in the rough, there are numerous rules they probably aren’t aware of.

Each golfing group may have its own interpretation of rules. So, if you are playing with someone new, you might notice rule-breaking in your viewpoint, but the other golfer doesn’t view it as cheating.

Pure Frustration

A real conflict arises for those who love the game of golf but also get easily frustrated due to poor performance. Sometimes, golfers may break rules or write down lower scores when frustrated. The motive here is to salvage any joy they have left and make them feel better about their performance.

Ultimately, golf should be treated as an enjoyable hobby. For those who are heavily invested in their golf performance, it’s challenging to always view it that way.

Final Thoughts on Why Golfers Cheat

As I’ve discussed, there are a multitude of reasons why golfers cheat. Whether it’s due to frustration, pride and ego, fear of failure, or keeping up with their playing partners, golfers can be motivated to break the rules due to many factors.

All the reasons golfers cheat stem from valuing personal motives over the integrity of the game. Golfers who cheat place importance on their score over being honest and fair.

Cheating in golf varies case by case. However, cheating doesn’t make anyone a better player. The more these players conform to the rules and maintain friendly and fair competition, the better they will be on and off the golf course.