Why Golf is the Greatest Sport

In every other sport there's a degree of cheating that goes on. That's why there's referrees or umpires that have to police the players in every sport. Without them, the games would be total anarchy. There would be no way to even keep track of what's going on.

Let me explain:

There isn't a single football play that doesn't have cheating going on. Besides the infractions the ref's actually see and call, there's holding on each and every play. Not to mention coaches have been trying to steal signals, another mess now.

In basketball, there are fouls called on every other play, and if a player gets touched with just a finger, they jump in the air, scream, and throw the ball way up in the air with their arms flailing because they got hit so hard. Not to mention they're crybabies.

Hockey and soccer are kind of the same way. I used to play hockey years ago so I'm not bashing the sport but I'll tell you why. In hockey and soccer, some players try to draw a penalty so bad (known as taking a dive, and is cheating) that they drop to the ground as if they were shot. Yet they weren't even touched. They'll drop down, grab an area they think could be hurt and flop around like a fish out of water. It's really bad in soccer, whereas it's mildly bad in hockey.

Baseball is just full of cheaters-period. I won't even go into the whole steroids thing either. Most of the other sports have a ton of juice heads too so it's across the board and not worth going into. But baseball has been known for it's cheating since the beginning of the century. Pitchers were doctoring the ball any chance they could, and got into the hall of fame no less. Gaylord Perry and Don Sutton were notorious for scuffing, greasing, and sanding the ball, anything to get the edge. There's a lot more than that going on but I guess it's not cheating if you don't get caught. They will also try to steal catcher's signs and peak to see where the catcher is setting up for a pitch. That's more of gamesmanship than anything and the players will control that but for the most part there's a great deal of cheating.

Now before you're steamed because I'm ripping on these sports because they do need referree's for more than cheating. All these sports are very physical, very fast, and things happen in the blink of an eye. There's more than cheating that the ref's are looking for because all the action that's going on. They're in a way protecting the players as well. But they're looking for cheaters, there's no doubt about it.

So getting to golf, the action is much slower so there isn't a reason to have ref's to call flagrant fouls, or to make sure an injury isn't going to happen so I understand the reason for ref's and umpires. However, golf is awesome in the fact the players call their own penalties. If you're reading this and know nothing about golf you might say, 'that's stupid, just don't call the penalty on yourself', and that's the beauty of it. There isn't a golfer on any tour that would ever not call a penalty on themselves. Even if no rules officials are around and no one was there to see the penalty, they'll call over a rules official just to make sure they're applying the rule properly. No matter what position there in, how important the tournament is, they will undoubtedly call the penalty on themselves.

Golf teaches you honor and integrity. Such that a golfer wouldn't be able to sleep at night if they committed a penalty and didn't enforce it. Sergio Garcia (who is not a favorite of mine or most people) was asked about a ruling that he inquired about. It appeared that he was entitled relief from a storm drain which was affecting his stance. Garcia was, in fact, entitled to a free drop but for some reason it came into question whether or not he should have been allowed the free drop. He was adamant that he was and even called a rules official to confirm. You could tell he was telling the truth and did correctly enforce the rule. He then said, "I'd rather shoot 85 by the rules then shoot 69 by cheating. That's just not how it is in golf." Even though I can't stand the guy, that was a pretty good synopsis of how golfers think.

Play the ball where it lies folks.