Cheaters!!!- Mark Pavlovich
I just love when someone uses that word. It is so harsh. They cheated on their taxes, they cheated on their spouses and they cheated on their tests. YIKES !!!!! Can you imagine anyone cheating in football, baseball, ice hockey, basketball, sorry there are no enforceable rules in basketball ….
A cheater is defined as: one who acts dishonest, to elude by trickery or deception, lying. So once again the world of technology has set golfers against each other in one of the last of the gentlemen sports; yes, Phil has been called a cheater. That’s right, Phil Mickelson has been branded a cheater by other pros because he is using a club that is within the rules, but which skirts the boundaries of acceptability according to technology rules.
That’s right, MR. TITLE IX, that aspect of sports that you keep protecting on FNM is now slithering its ugly bite into one of the last bastions of fair play. What is wrong with you technological geeks who keep thinking that the changing of the accessories is beneficial to the game? Please do not answer with the traditional: “well maybe they should still be playing with …….” Advancement is fine, but just as we have advanced with our automobiles, none of thinks that we should have cars that do a thousand miles an hour with roads that are filled with stop, stop, stop and go traffic.
So why do you and your cohorts feel that the constant change of the accessories will improve the sport? Why not just try to improve the athlete in a non-controversial way? Or maybe you think it is fine that an athlete is called a; rogue, confidence man, quack, charlatan, conniver, fraud, beguiler, deceiver, trickster, inveigler, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, four-flusher, a shill, fake, pretender, hypocrite, con man, shark ….can’t use shark.
Gentlemen, awake from your world of metal clubs, belly putters, softer covered golf balls and GPS yardage finders, and realize that there are certain games that should be left alone. So what if you are not as strong and accurate as the next guy. So what if you cannot putt as well as everyone on the course. So what if your game is just a little south of John Daly’s. THEN QUIT… or you could just enjoy the game you have when you head out to the golf course. And please, do not try to walk around the hazard if the rule of the game is bad for the spirit of the game, because then the rule should be changed not just bypassed. So please geeks, understand that your world of technology is ruining this game and other games as well.
I’ll tell you what; let’s give the best players of today’s game of golf some semi-antiquated equipment, persimmon woods, standard putters and golf balls that are under wound, and let us watch them play the game and see if the quality of the sport degenerates. If it doesn’t, then let us look at non-domed stadiums and allowing the sports to be played in the elements they were dealt. If we do that, then maybe when we try to discuss the greats of the generations we all seem able to relate to, there might be a sense of equality because they all played a very similar game. Then, the only ones who can be pointed at and called CHEATERS are the ones that broke the clear-cut rules of the game.
Tags: PGA Tour, Phil Mickelson, Ping, technology
February 1st, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Technology does not equal cheating. No, technology does not always help the game but it does not always hurt the game. As one said many times, the greats can play in any era. Golf is a gentleman’s game, a game where gentlemen gamble, or are those stories the Buddha of Babble tells not accurate. So if gambling is okay in golf, then why not in other sports. And if it is in the realm of the official rules then is it really cheating. This incident simply shows that the pure sport of golf isn’t that pure and really never was.
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Title IX,
Technology does change the rules if everyone who competes is not given the same technology of equal value. If player X is given technology that is in the gray area of the rules by his sponsor, it does not mean that player X’s sponsor will share same technology with the rest of the field in said sport
ALSO:
What of those groups who do not have the resources for R & D, should we then just say to the poor and middle class organizations, “you will most likely never win because technology only helps those who are successful in their field”. Arnie, Jack and other legends of other sports on how technology(not improvement) has watered down the word “great” to mean very good
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:46 pm
No one said life was fair. The word great is thrown around too much now, but when a player performs at the level of greatness with or without technology, then one must recognize that greatness. Even Arnie and Jack benefited from technology.
February 4th, 2010 at 10:54 am
So where do you stop with technology? if the fictional product “flubber” is invented and put into the soles of athletic shoes and those shoes give players another nine inch lift off a basketball floor, do we allow it?
Why not then allow governed steroids, that make you bigger, faster and stronger if you wish to take them? Let people juice their bats without restriction of rules.
I find it amazing that when “Gatorade” was discovered it was only used by the Florida school that invented it until a major soft drink company bought the rights. But when technology changes the basic rules of the sport or be it the spirit of the sport and the sport itself is changed, then technology has denigrated not enhanced or improved sports in general