Secret Tour Caddy: How tour players cheat – and what the caddies see every week

“Cheating ****”

That was how one European Tour player described one of his compatriots to me on the way back from the golf club a few years ago before launching a tirade about how he’d be thrown out of a national squad, and how someone had refused to sign his card on another tour.

Both happened long before he allegedly received advice from his coach mid-round. Then there was “Le Tricheur.”

In case you don’t speak French, this means ‘the Cheat’ and the name given to one particular player on tour by the players from another European nation. This was off the back of a Maxfli ball found in the left trees on 10 at Valderrama almost certainly being his, rather than the one he hit to the green; but also because of his penchant for taking a drop out of casual water without consulting his playing partners.

Neither however should be confused with the guy who could walk down the range without receiving a single ‘Hello, how are you doing’ or indeed any form of acknowledgement from his peers because he had “form.” Or the one who got caught on TV tapping down a spike mark on his line (when you couldn’t) with what could only be described as a ‘furtive’ look on his face.

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Professional golfer cheating: It isn’t as uncommon as you might think

Then there’s the one who took those dodgy drops at the Masters and the Players that no one ever talks about; or Johan Tumba who (in)famously got banned in the 90s for altering his scorecard after it had been signed, which amazingly took forensic analysis of his doctored scorecard to resolve.

This is a long-winded way of saying that, while it doesn’t happen very often, cheating is not unknown in professional golf, despite what you might think. Sorry if that shatters your illusions, but it’s true.

Tour caddies hate cheats and over my 20 years on tour, there have been those amongst our ranks who have called out cheating and cheats. We respect and salute each and every one of them and hold those who they did catch out in ‘low regard’. As it has to be said, do the vast majority of tour pros.

We especially respect those colleagues who have taken matters into their own hands when they do spot someone ‘not abiding by the rules’ like a veteran English colleague who put the bag down on his guy after being told to ‘shut the f*** up: that’s my first ball’ after finding their provisional ball but not the first one.

Like the guy who gave his player the choice of DQ’ing himself or I’ll do it for you when to his horror as they were right up there, he spotted that his man had signed for one less than he’d actually had. Unfortunately, he had to do the doing when he refused.

And like any of us who’ve walked away once the five minutes (as it was until recently) was up while the player in question was quite happy to keep on looking. In all cases it’s taken these guys b******* to do what they’ve done. And each and every one of them goes down in tour caddy history for doing so.

Gentlemen, we salute you.

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