Its all about honesty

It8217;s a big, bad world out there they say. Maybe not all of it really. All evil presumably stops at golf club gates. Inside, there are r...

It8217;s a big, bad world out there they say. Maybe not all of it really. All evil presumably stops at golf club gates. Inside, there are rules instead. Michelle Wei just found out how exasperatingly schoolmarm-ish bunkermen can be. The problem is, she didn8217;t know the rules either.

The old story is about honesty, integrity and etiquette. Golf is about all that, and one more: Rules. Heather Daly-Donofrio, President of the US LPGA Tour players, here for a women8217;s skins meet, felt that it was only right that rules rule on the course. 8220;It8217;s a question of integrity in golf,8221; she says.

Her point could sound utopian. 8216;8216;Wei is 16, maybe it was for her to learn a lesson. The rules are there in black and white and in English. It8217;s upto Wei to know them.8217;8217; 8216;Unfortunate8217; is a word Heather used once, 8220;integrity8221; she uses more. 8220;We don8217;t have the umpires and referees of other sports. We have the faith of our forebears on us instead. We have the responsibility for our acts, a responsibility that makes us answerable to ourselves first.8221;

Heather, from Fairfield, Connecticut, graduated cum laude from Yale University and also attended Oxford University. She has career earnings of 10,04,933, and is a playing official of the Tour. Wei does not belong to the LPGA, but Heather is sure, the rules won8217;t be any lenient on Wei if she were.

The story was of PGA Tour players being so uptight about rules that they would call an official for regulation violation check even if their shoes are untied. Some feel the quiet game of golf has changed for good. Some, like Smriti Mehra Guffin, India8217;s first representative on the US LPGA Tour, feel it8217;s the best way.

8220;Life is about honesty. About being happy, about integrity, about being yourself. Golfing rules are fair,8221; Smriti says. When she said the almost-hallowed greens of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club the second-oldest in the world were unkempt, she had given an honest opinion.

Smriti is gearing up to push Indian women into the western especially US golfing world. Utopian or not, Smriti is trying to find a way for India8217;s girls child to be proud, and not hungry. Her objectives and rules, hence, are simple.