WHAT a tumultuous week it’s been for world champion Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team.
Since the debacle in Melbourne, where the McLaren team conspired to rob Jarno Trulli of third place, the repercussions have been swift and devastating.
Dave Ryan, the team’s sporting director, has since been sacked while Hamilton’s standing in the sport has plummeted.
There is also the small matter of further sanctions by The International Automobile Federation, the sport’s governing body.
Hamilton’s finger is pointed at Ryan, the blame for his misdeeds forced onto the Kiwi’s shoulders.
In a press conference last Friday to apologise for his mistake, Hamilton said: “I was misled and that’s the way it went.”
Wow.
That got me thinking, is it too much to ask of athletes to own up when they make mistakes and not try to weasel out?
And what does it say of a world champion of this sport, or any sport, that when faced with the choice of honesty or an additional championship point, he flounders.
He hides behind team orders, his justification for his actions amounts to a flimsy “He told me to do it.”
Why the sharp reaction you might ask? Two words. The Masters.
Golf’s first Major of the year is finally here. And yes it brings with it drama, excitement – will Tiger win his fifth Green Jacket and inch closer to Jack Nicklaus’ magical 18? Or will Padraig Harrington and his ridiculously-named “Paddy Slam” splash the headlines come Monday?
But more importantly, it reminds us that words like integrity and honesty should not be driven over as carelessly as one young Englishman has done.
No sport is perfect, obviously. Golf too has its sinners. Why just last week my dad recounted how during an inter-club competition at Warren Golf and Country Club a player’s lost ball kept reappearing on the fairway.
Apparently miracles on Sundays are not confined to churches.
In a sport where the rule book is almost as thick as the Bible and treated as such, its players are wont to misbehave.
It is a rare sport that leaves its players to police themselves. Only at the highest levels of competition, the Majors for example, is there an official nearby. And even then, not every flight has one in accompaniment.
Golfers are thus left to govern themselves and do so, even when to their detriment.
American golfer J.P. Haynes played an illegal ball for a single hole during the second stage of Qualifying school last year.
It was an error unbeknownst to everyone, including Haynes himself. He realised his violation a day later and informed officials, thereby disqualifying himself and losing his exempt status for this year’s PGA season.
His reply to the incident?
“I don't think anyone would have known, but I would have known. Had I made it all the way through Q-school and gotten my card back, I think that it would have been anticlimactic for me.”
Perhaps the most famous example of the unique code of honour placed by golf on its players is the 1925 US Open where Bobby Jones called a one-stroke penalty on himself after his ball had moved as he addressed it in the rough.
No one present had seen this faintest of movement by the ball. Not the officials, not Jones’ playing partner Walter Hagen, not caddies or the spectators gathered.
But Jones called the penalty on himself anyway. That single stroke cost him an outright victory and he would go on to lose a 36-hole play-off to Willie Macfarlane.
When applauded for his sportsmanship, the then 23-year-old simply replied: “You might as well praise me for not robbing banks.”
Someone once famously said, if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.
I guess he wasn’t a golfer.