Are Golf Tournaments Rigged
Over the years in professional sports, there have been many instances where results were rigged or questioned. While this happens in sports like football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and cricket, golf has never been one sport that came under the cheating spotlight.
Golf tournaments are not rigged, as the requirements to achieve this are too great. Most of the field and officials would have to be involved, and aside from that, the margins of error in swing mechanics and weather conditions preclude the possibility of rigging golf events.
Let’s look at why golf tournaments would be virtually impossible to rig, what it would take hypothetically to rig a golf event result, as well as why the basic characteristics of the sport don’t lend themselves to cheating.
The Nature Of Golf Precludes Tournament Rigging
For starters, the golf swing is one of the main reasons golf events cannot be rigged. The inconsistency involved, even at the top level of the game, means that no golfer can reliably hit better shots than the rest of the field.
When you consider that the average FIR/GIR stats in the PGA tour are around 65% GIR and 58,44% FIR, this means that even the best players have a 35% error margin for greens in regulation and 41,56% error margin for fairways hit off the tee and this alone means that it would be impossible to rig results.
While some other sports, like boxing, can be more easily controlled and manipulated, golf, by its nature, has too many moving parts to be successfully rigged. The golf swing is too erratic to allow a single player or even event officials to rig the result.
However, there is potential for players to ‘play badly’ and create instances where they could hit balls offline intentionally to take advantage of bets against them winning, but this would only apply to individual players or, in extreme cases, a team, but this could not be used to a full event.
Then Honor Code In Golf Precludes Tournament Rigging
Aside from the logistical difficulties, the honor code in golf is probably the main reason golf tournaments cannot and are not rigged. Golfers strive to maintain a high level of integrity both on and off the course, and while some have been exposed as cheaters, this is limited to individual players.
Golf is one of the few remaining sports where the honor code is embedded deeply into the heart of the game to the degree that players would rather call penalties on themselves and risk losing rather than cheat on their scorecard!
Even though the money involved is substantial, the desire to keep their integrity is more important, as once you have been caught cheating at golf, that stigma remains for a long time. At the amateur level, the same applies, and even weekend golfers are honest regarding their scores.
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Golf Tournament Logistics Would Be Impossible To Rig
Let’s consider the logistics required to rig a golf tournament. To secure a specific result, whether individual or team, virtually every official must be involved. Even then, extensive TV coverage would seriously impede successfully rigging an event.
Even if all the officials were involved, TV commentators with vast experience in the game would quickly pick up on oddities. Aside from that, rules officials play a very small role in the overall event. They are only called in occasionally to provide rulings.
Moreover, you would need most of the players involved as well, and this is the second biggest challenge, as golfers are publicly averse to cheating or any action that disreputes the game or their honor!
The greatest challenge with rigging golf tournaments comes down to the ability of any player to hit the exact shots needed on any given hole, as the golf swing itself is not precise enough to accurately predict shot results, and weather conditions play a major role there too.
Playing To Lose
The only possible option in rigging a golf tournament would be for a player or players to miss putts intentionally to allow for a higher probability of another player winning. Still, even here, there is no guarantee that this would happen.
Again, this is due to the game’s nature and the golf stroke’s unpredictable nature.
Let’s say that there is a drive to have a specific player win a tournament, and most of the field is involved -even if they miss putts or shots, the designated ‘winner’ may still self-destruct by missing putts or losing shots, and the result may not go as planned.
This is due solely to the inconsistent nature of the golf swing and the tiny error margins involved.
In team events, players could conspire to ‘generously’ concede holes to opponents in matchplay by not making them putt from distances outside of a foot, but unless everyone was involved, this would be noticed and investigated quickly
You Can’t Fake Shots In Golf
When we look at Tiger’s incredible win record, the main reason why golf tournaments aren’t rigged is that you cannot fake shots in golf. You cannot hit the ball way off target and then have it mysteriously land on the green or in the hole!
No. You cannot fake good golf shots, and while you can certainly and intentionally hit bad ones, you cannot do the same for the good ones, and you would need to do this to rig a golf tournament.
Unlike sports like football, baseball, and basketball, where other players can influence the ball’s flight and direction by getting their hands on it, once the golf ball leaves the clubface, no player or official can exert any level of influence to alter that ball’s flight and alter the shot result.
The Influence Of Nature Prevents Rigging Of Golf Tournaments
Herein lies the true reason golf tournaments cannot be rigged – the result of every shot is unpredictable at best. A golfer can hit two almost identical shots to the same point, and they will not end up in the same spot.
The only element that influences the ball flight and shot result is nature, which is completely unpredictable.
While the ball is in the air, wind gusts may increase or drop, and that could have an effect on the shot plus, the ground the ball lands on could deflect it one way or another or cause it to bounce unevenly or roll further than expected – none of these results can be predicted.
In sports where rigging is possible, there is greater predictability regarding the likely result, but golf’s fundamental nature does not provide for this.
Conclusion
In the past,individual golfers have been caught cheating, ChapStick on golf clubs for example, but no golf tournament has ever been accused of being rigged. This is because the logistics involved to rig an event’s result are too great and add to that the unpredictability of the golf swing and mother nature, and we can safely say that golf is one of the few sports where tournament results cannot be rigged.
