THERE was one cheat last year that got caught in the Fil-Am Invitational Golf Championship by San Miguel Corporation that fires off today its 66th edition in Baguio City’s Camp John Hay and Baguio Country Club.
He was disqualified together with his team.
In the Fil-Am Golf, established in 1949 by movie heartthrob Rogelio de la Rosa with his American friend that headed the US military base at Clark, the fault of one is the fault of all.
This rule, cruel as it may seem, is very much admired, especially by the upright. Several had disqualified themselves with the mere suspicion they had infringed on a golf procedure; and, in the process, they became giants of the game (Pocholo Hernandez is one), were applauded lustily, forever, by the truest guardians of morals.
In almost every staging of the Fil-Am Golf, where teams are in the tournament chiefly by invitation, infractions are a dime a dozen almost daily.
There are rule-breakers of “putting beyond bogey,” who love to say, “No, I didn’t intend to hole it out. I merely tried to tap the ball away for my caddy to pick it up but unfortunately, the ball found the hole.”
That’s hogwash, of course.
Any action that a golfer does, right or wrong, he is responsible for it. And in the case of holing a ball beyond bogey, that is an automatic deduction of two points to the culprit’s team. History is replete with instances when a team incurring a two-point penalty would eventually lose the crown by a solitary point. Cruel.
Last year, that cheat, whose team was banned forever from the Fil-Am Golf, was not only expelled from that club whose team members included a diplomat and several company presidents.
During the Captains’ Meeting on Nov. 18, two members of that team came to me and reported: “Remember that guy that your Committee had disqualified for cheating? He got immediately expelled from our team. As a result, he lost millions of pesos in lucrative contracts with some of our team members he did business with.”
Why some people cheat remains a mystery to this day. Temptation lurks in every nook and cranny of society and the weak of heart are the usual victims.
Will power is blue chip and prime property of all time. Sadly, as in among some golfers, it is also the most elusive trait of many of our politicians.
(alsol47@yahoo.com)