CADDIE'S ROLE:A signature on a scorecard is not just a scrawl on the end of a piece of paper

ESTEBAN TOLEDO is an ex-boxer from Mexico who turned to professional golf and made pretty good careers out of both. In the early 1990s he caught a fellow professional from Korea marking his ball in a strange fashion in a Korean event. He let him know that if he didn’t stop he was going to exercise some of the skill he had gleaned in his earlier career.

The peculiar ball-marking continued and Esteban turned out to be a man of his word when he hooked the Korean about the left jowl, but left him on his feet in the ring, so to speak. The ball- marking improved dramatically after the punch. The officials decided the embarrassment of having one of their own accused of such an offence was worse than it was for him to feel the physical wrath of an ex-boxer. We assume to this day the Korean marks his ball in the appropriate fashion.

Sometimes the hardest lessons are the physical ones. The world tours of today have a more civilised way of dealing with any improprieties.

There was an incident in the first round of the Open de Andalucia held at the Parador Golf Club in Malaga last week which required a notice to be posted in the scorers’ office in order for the rest of the field to be totally clear about what happened. The result was that two players from the same group were disqualified due to one of them “incorrectly” replacing his ball on the green.

Golfers in competition are guardians of the game. It is not like most other sports where an arbiter keeps a constant eye on proceedings; the competitors protect both themselves and the rest of the field.

Naturally in professional events there are referees on site but they cannot possibly watch over the entire field.

Borja Etchart from Spain was disqualified from the first round of the Open de Andalucia for failing to add two penalty strokes for playing a ball from a wrong place on two of the last three holes of his round. Which, reading between the lines, would suggest that he was replacing his ball on the greens in a “careless” manner on previous occasions too.

If you see a playing partner doing something inappropriate on the course you have a duty to take action. The trouble is that, as a competitor, accusing a fellow player of incorrect actions will probably lead to some discussion and maybe a little bad feeling. As we all know, the game is difficult enough without any such contretemps. The right thing to do is take action. The easiest and wrong thing to do is ignore an action by a fellow competitor that you know is wrong. You are protecting yourself, your fellow competitors and the integrity of the game.

Etchart’s playing partners were Andrew Coltart and Erik Tage Johansen. The Norwegian, Johansen, was marking the accused’s card. Coltart and Johansen reported to the tournament committee after the scorecards had been returned that they had seen Borja incorrectly replace his ball on the 16th and 18th greens.

As if the scene of the young Spaniard visibly upset by the news of his disqualification wasn’t difficult enough for the authorities, they had to disqualify the Norwegian too for signing for a score he knew was lower due to the failure to include the penalties.

By signing the incorrect score card he was deemed, in effect, to be an accomplice. Coltart would also have been disqualified if he had not reported the incident to the committee.

The ruling will hopefully have the desired effect on tour members in the future, by reinforcing the idea of each competitor taking responsibility for both his, and his fellow playing partners’, actions on the course.

A signature on a scorecard is an endorsement of integrity, not just a scrawl on the end of a piece of paper.