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Anonymous Player Poll: Nearly half of PGA Tour pros have witnessed cheating during a tournament

September 5, 2018

Despite the hush-hush nature of cheating on the PGA Tour, everyone seems to be well aware of the c-word. They just don’t do it themselves.

As part of our newly published Anonymous Pro Survey, which you can find in the October Issue of GOLF, a resounding 44% of Tour pros surveyed admitted that they had witnessed a fellow Tour player cheat during a tournament round.

“Multiple times,” offered one Tour pro. “The Tour is a joke when it comes to enforcing the Rules.”

While those numbers might be slightly inflated, it appears there is plenty of rule-bending on the Tour, at least more than the public typically hears about. The irony exists is in the follow-up question. Of the players surveyed, 100% said they themselves had never broken a rule and not reported it. Of the plenty of players willing to call out cheating, none were willing to point the finger back on themselves.

Could it be that those surveyed simply don’t bend the rules like their playing partners? Sure thing. It also could be that the notion is just too damning to discuss publicly. As Joel Dahmen and Sung Kang displayed earlier this year, there is often plenty of grey area surrounding a rules dispute between two players.

This is just one of the insights gleaned from our anonymous poll. Also included are polarizing viewpoints on President Trump, Brandel Chamblee, Tiger Woods and more.

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