Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 9. Source pages: 16.
Luke Simmering, an industrial- organizational psychology graduate student from Louisiana Tech worked with Golf Digest to develop a survey to understand more about which rules golfers considered sacrosanct and which they think could be easily broken.
Luke developed the survey with co- investigator Dr. Dan Sachau, an IO psychologist and director at Minnesota State-Mankao. The questionnaire was completed by 2,015 golfers and readers of Golf Digest.
The results were published in “Where Do You Fall on Golf’s Honesty Meter?” for the March issue. The 15 item survey covered golfing behaviors such as double hitting the ball, playing shots from the deep rough, moving ball positions, changing scores, ect.
An example question is, “Your ball is in the rough. You take a full swing intending to hit the ball but miss it completely. You did not touch any part of the ball, nor did you change the ball's position. Would you pretend the stroke was a practice swing and not count it?” Eighty seven percent said “Never” and 13 percent said “Under some circumstances.”
Most golfers said they were honest. In 10 of 15 of these golfing “fishy” situations, the majority of respondents reported that they stick with the rules.
However, one of the main findings was that 99 percent of those who admitted to breaking the rules believed that most others also break the rules.
Luke thinks the research “… adds to the conversation that a different set of rules or standards may be pragmatic for recreational golfers,” explaining this to LaTec news reporter Dave Guerin.
The article is available online at: http://www.golfdigest.com/magazin e/2012-03/golf-honesty-survey
Dr. Tillman Sheets is Chair of Psychology at LaTech, and an IO psychologist. Above, he presents for the LPA Fall Conference 2010, Scientific Track.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.