Published: November 24, 2008 11:06 am         

Hayes: Dumb, honest golfer

Commentary by Robert Carter

The North Jefferson News



So the story goes that one J. P. Hayes, who can best be described as a journeyman golfer on the PGA Tour for a number of years, did the right thing — and won’t be on the tour next year because of it.

Any fan of golf knows that it is the only major professional sport where the athletes call penalties on themselves. It is a source of pride among the players and organizers. Such is the game of golf, and has been since Old Tom Morris batted around a feather-filled ball with a hickory stick in Ye Olde Scotland.

But even the most Polyannish of fans will have to admit that what Hayes did carries honor among golfers to its extreme.

Hayes, who finished too far down on the PGA Tour money list this year to have an automatic exemption in 2009, was playing in that annual Bataan Death March that every pro golfer dreads — Qualifying School, or “Q School” for short. This grueling, multi-stage event is the last chance for golfers to get their tour card, which automatically gets them into most events the next year. It’s the difference between really big money and the relatively modest purses played for on the Nationwide Tour, the PGA version of the minor leagues.

Hayes has been on both tours at one time or another since 1992, with a couple of PGA Tour wins and one on the Nationwide Tour. His highest finish at a major tournament was in 2000, where he tied for 19th place in the PGA Championship.

He’s one of about a hundred or so golfers who exist at this level, well below the Tigers, Mickelsons, Sergios and Vijays. They plug along from event to event, making the cut some weeks and missing it the next. Hayes has done reasonably well, with over $7 million in career earnings, so he’s not sharing a dingy room at Motel 6 at tour stops.

He was competing in the second of three stages of this week’s Q School in Texas, doing fairly well despite a two-stroke self-reported penalty in Thursday’s second round. After landing his tee shot on the green and marking his ball, his caddy inadvertently pulled out a different model ball than what he teed off with. Hayes putted out with the different ball, then realized it wasn’t the same model. He called over a official, asked for a ruling, and added two strokes to his scorecard.

That was just the beginning of the troubles.

Later that night, when Hayes did his routine of going through his bag to prepare for the next round, he realized that the errant ball was not an approved model. It was a prototype of a new ball given to him by Titleist for practice rounds. Somehow it got mixed up with his regular balls in his bag.

Bear in mind that this discovery was made when Hayes was all by himself in his motel room. In other words, no one but Hayes and his Maker knew anything of this. Hayes could have tossed the ball into the nearest dumpster and gone on his merry way, with no one else the wiser.

He didn’t.

Hayes called Q School officials and told them of the violation, knowing full well that the result would be disqualification — and no tour card. A mistake that likely cost him tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in winnings.

“I would say everybody out here would have done the same thing,” Hayes told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I would hope he’s right. My typical reporter’s cynicism tells me otherwise.

Hayes is not completely out in the cold. There’s the Nationwide Tour, he still qualifies for some PGA events as a past champion, and can get into others on sponsor’s exemptions — and there will likely be a number of sponsors more than willing to capitalize on the publicity about the game’s most honest player.

ESPN’s golf writer Jason Sobel probably put it best: “Call it karma or coincidence, but the golf gods have a way of rewarding those who adhere to the Rules [of Golf].”

But Hayes’ self-disqualification was more than just honesty. In this case, it was just plain guts.

It’s not the kind of guts most of us have. Myself included.