The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

Of course, this means that understanding the mechanisms involved in dishonesty is more complex and that deterring dishonesty is not an easy task—but it also means that uncovering the intricate relationship between honesty and dishonesty will be a more exciting adventure.

CHAPTER 2B

Golf

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.

—WILL ROGERS

There’s a scene in the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance where Matt Damon’s character, Rannulph Junuh, is attempting to get his golf game back, but he makes a critical error and his ball ends up in the woods. After making it back onto the green, he moves a twig that is just adjacent to the ball in order to create a clear path for his shot. As he moves the twig the ball rolls a tiny bit to the side. According to the rules, he has to count it as a stroke. At that point in the match, Junuh had gained enough of a lead that if he ignored the rule, he could win, making a comeback and restoring his former glory. His youthful assistant tearfully begs Junuh to ignore the movement of the ball. “It was an accident,” the assistant says, “and it’s a stupid rule anyway. Plus, no one would ever know.” Junuh turns to him and says stoically, “I will. And so will you.”

Even Junuh’s opponents suggest that most likely the ball just wobbled and returned to its former position or that the light tricked Junuh into thinking that the ball moved. But Junuh insists that the ball rolled away. The result is an honorably tied game.

That scene was inspired by a real event that occurred during the 1925 U.S. Open. The golfer, Bobby Jones, noticed that his ball moved ever so slightly as he prepared for his shot in the rough. No one saw, no one would ever have known, but he called the stroke on himself and went on to lose the match. When people discovered what he’d done and reporters began to flock to him, Jones famously asked them not to write about the event, saying “You might as well praise me for not robbing banks.” This legendary moment of noble honesty is still referred to by those who love the game, and for good reason.

I think this scene—both cinematic and historic—captures the romantic ideal of golf. It’s a demonstration of man versus himself, showing both his skill and nobility. Perhaps these characteristics of self-reliance, self-monitoring, and high moral standards are why golf is often used as a metaphor for business ethics (not to mention the fact that so many businesspeople spend so much time on golf courses). Unlike other sports, golf has no referee, umpire, or panel of judges to make sure rules are followed or to make calls in questionable situations. The golfer, much like the businessperson, has to decide for him- or herself what is and is not acceptable. Golfers and businesspeople must choose for themselves what they are willing and not willing to do, since most of the time there is no one else to supervise or check their work. In fact, golf’s three underlying rules are, Play the ball as it lies, play the course as you find it, and if you cannot do either, do what is fair. But “fair” is a notoriously difficult thing to determine. After all, a lot of people might judge not counting an accidental and inconsequential change in the ball’s location after a movement of a twig as “fair.” In fact, it might seem pretty unfair to be penalized for an incidental movement of the ball.

DESPITE THE NOBLE heritage that golfers claim for their sport, it seems that many people view the game in the same way Will Rogers did: as one that will make a cheater out of anyone. That is not terribly surprising when you stop to think about it. In golf, players hit a tiny ball across a great distance, replete with obstacles, into a very small hole. In other words, it’s extremely frustrating and difficult, and when we’re the ones judging our own performance, it seems that there would be many times where we might be a little extra lenient when it comes to applying the rules to our own score.

So in our quest to learn more about dishonesty, we turned to our nation’s many golfers. In 2009, Scott McKenzie (a Duke undergraduate student at the time) and I carried out a study in which we asked thousands of golfers a series of questions about how they play the game and, most importantly, how they cheat. We asked them to imagine situations in which nobody could observe them (as is often the case in golf) and they could decide to follow the rules (or not) without any negative consequences. With the help of a company that manages golf courses, we e-mailed golfers around the United States, asking them to participate in a survey on golf in return for a chance to win all kinds of high-end golf equipment. About twelve thousand golfers answered our call, and here is what we learned.

Moving the Ball