Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Andrew Davis.
Speaker 2: And I'm Pauler Dvis. Spotlight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: A woman is alone playing golf. Golf is a sport
Speaker 1: where people hit a small ball with a metal stick.
Speaker 1: The ball must go into a cup in the ground.
Speaker 1: A round of golf is eighteen holes. A hole is
Speaker 1: the place where a player begins and ends that part
Speaker 1: of the game. Each hole is a different distance. Each
Speaker 1: hole has an average number of hits it takes to
Speaker 1: get the ball into the cup. The average is called
Speaker 1: par Every hole has a part of three, par four,
Speaker 1: or par five. She writes down how many hits it
Speaker 1: took her on each hole. At the end of the game,
Speaker 1: the player adds up the total number of hits for
Speaker 1: all eighteen holes. That is their score for the game.
Speaker 2: Today, the woman is playing better than ever. She has
Speaker 2: a chance to make her personal best score. She is
Speaker 2: now at the last hole, which is a par four.
Speaker 2: She has taken only two hits so far. If she
Speaker 2: makes her next hit, she will get the ball in
Speaker 2: the cup in only three hits. That would be called
Speaker 2: a birdie. A birdie is one shot under par. Birdies
Speaker 2: are hard to make. Every golfer wants to make them.
Speaker 1: She takes her swing. It looks like a perfect hit
Speaker 1: straight towards the cup, but the ball stops on the
Speaker 1: edge of the cup. She waits and hopes the ball
Speaker 1: falls in, but it does not. She taps the ball
Speaker 1: into the cup for par. She missed her best score
Speaker 1: by one hit. She is about to write the number
Speaker 1: four for her score on the last hole, but she waits.
Speaker 1: She looks around and sees no one. She thinks about
Speaker 1: writing the number three. No one would know it would
Speaker 1: be her best score. She was so close. She may
Speaker 1: never play this well again. She is not sure what
Speaker 1: to write.
Speaker 2: On today Spotlight we look at honesty in golf. In
Speaker 2: summer sports like soccer or baseball, cheating sometimes happens. Players
Speaker 2: pretend to be injured to gain advantage, or they try
Speaker 2: to trip their opponents when no one is looking. Sometimes
Speaker 2: coaches even teach this, but cheating is not accepted in golf.
Speaker 2: A golfer who cheats must deal with the negative results
Speaker 2: for the rest of their lives. The following golfers were
Speaker 2: faced with a choice to tell the truth. Each made
Speaker 2: a decision. The results were very different.
Speaker 1: An entire game of golf covers a large area. A
Speaker 1: golfer has many moments alone. If he wants to lie,
Speaker 1: he can easily make up a false score. He can
Speaker 1: move his ball to a better spot. This makes honesty
Speaker 1: very important in golf. It guides a player when no
Speaker 1: one is watching.
Speaker 2: Truthfulness is part of the tradition of golf. A player's
Speaker 2: honor means more than any score or victory. Bobby Jones
Speaker 2: was one of the greatest golfers of all time. In
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five, he played the US Open, one of
Speaker 2: the biggest golf contests of the year. Jones was close
Speaker 2: to winning the US Open. It was the eleventh hole
Speaker 2: of the final round. Jones hit his ball into the
Speaker 2: tall grass. When Jones stood over his ball, it moved.
Speaker 2: He had not touched the ball, but this counted as
Speaker 2: a hit. According to writer David R.
Speaker 3: Smith, if the ball moves at all, even by accident,
Speaker 3: it's a one shot penalty. But no one saw the
Speaker 3: ball move except for Bobby himself, not even a gallery member,
Speaker 3: not his caddie, not even his competitor. There wasn't a
Speaker 3: TV camera pointed at him, but Jones called the one
Speaker 3: shot penalty on himself anyway.
Speaker 1: Officials question whether the ball had moved, but Jones was sure.
Speaker 1: He gave himself a penalty. A penalty adds one hit
Speaker 1: to a player's score. He lost the US Open by
Speaker 1: one hit because of his penalty. Afterwards, people congratulated him
Speaker 1: for his honesty. He replied, you may as well praise
Speaker 1: a man for n rubbing a bank.
Speaker 2: Bobby Jones played the game of golf honestly. V. J.
Speaker 1: Singh is a golfer from Fiji. In nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: he was only twenty two years old. He was new
Speaker 1: to professional golf. He was hoping to make golf his career.
Speaker 1: That year. In the Indonesian Open in Jakarta, Singh changed
Speaker 1: his official score for his second round. He lowered his
Speaker 1: score by one hit. This improvement would have allowed him
Speaker 1: to play the final two rounds on the week end.
Speaker 1: He could have won more money, but contest officials discovered
Speaker 1: he had cheated. Sing was forced to leave the competition.
Speaker 1: Singh was then not allowed to play golf for a
Speaker 1: while by the Southeast Asian Golf Federation. Sing denied he cheated.
Speaker 1: He said it was a misunderstanding, but an American player
Speaker 1: who was at the contest said it was not a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: All of us who were around are very upset that
Speaker 1: VJ denies this.
Speaker 2: For years afterward, Seeing had to work part time jobs.
Speaker 2: He played in small golf contests when he could. He
Speaker 2: had to struggle to get back to professional golf. He
Speaker 2: finally made it many years later. He became very successful.
Speaker 2: He won the biggest contests in golf. He earned millions
Speaker 2: of dollars, but he still denied he had cheated. Many
Speaker 2: fellow competitors and golf followers never forgave him.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, professional golfer Justin Dodan cheated in
Speaker 1: a similar way to Sing. He improved his score at
Speaker 1: a contest for the chance to play in the final
Speaker 1: two rounds. He could have made more money. Dodan erased
Speaker 1: the number seven on his score card. He replaced the
Speaker 1: number seven with the number five. This improved his final
Speaker 1: score by two hits. Golfers who played with Dodan noticed
Speaker 1: his score changed, so they contacted the officials. There was
Speaker 1: an immediate investigation, but Dodan quickly withdrew from the competition.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Dodan made a comment on x
Speaker 1: I am here to admit one of the biggest mistakes
Speaker 1: I have made in my life. I cheated in golf.
Speaker 1: This is not who I am. I let my family down,
Speaker 1: I let my competitors down, I let myself down. I
Speaker 1: pray for your forgiveness. First John one nine.
Speaker 2: First John one nine is a passage from the Christian Bible.
Speaker 2: It says, but if we confess our sins, God will
Speaker 2: forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He
Speaker 2: always does.
Speaker 1: What is right.
Speaker 2: He will make us clean from all the wrong things
Speaker 2: we have done.
Speaker 1: This Bible verse is a reminder to Christians. It says
Speaker 1: that God will forgive them no matter what they have
Speaker 1: done wrong. Unfortunately, the world of professional golf is not
Speaker 1: as forgiving as the Christian God. Dodan confessed that he
Speaker 1: had cheated. VJ. Singh never admitted he had cheated, but
Speaker 1: neither was forgiven by many golf fans. If Dodan had
Speaker 1: not withdrawn from the contest, he would have been forced
Speaker 1: to leave. He later left that professional golf tour in Canada.
Speaker 1: He later played in Latin America. He hoped for a
Speaker 1: new start, but his competitors and golf followers may never
Speaker 1: view him the same. He hurt himself, his family and
Speaker 1: his friends. He damaged his character.
Speaker 2: Honesty is as big a part of the tradition of
Speaker 2: golf as anything else. It is a sport where honor
Speaker 2: means more than skill. Champions have lied and won, but
Speaker 2: they never earned the same respect again, that is the
Speaker 2: biggest prize.
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about cheating at a game? How
Speaker 1: would you feel if others cheated on you? You can
Speaker 1: leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight
Speaker 1: English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and x You can also get our programs delivered directly
Speaker 1: to your Android or Apple device through our free official
Speaker 1: Spotlight English app.
Speaker 2: The writer of this program was Peter Anderson. The producer
Speaker 2: was mitchio Ozarki. The voices you heard were from the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
Speaker 2: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. No AI or
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence was used in this program. Spotlight programs are written, voiced,
Speaker 2: and produced by real people for real people, no matter
Speaker 2: where in the world they live. This program is called
Speaker 2: an honest Game.
Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 1: Spotlight program. Goodbye the ban was ba do mon