MY BOSS enters amateur golf tournaments and plays using a forged handicap certificate. Invariably his declared handicap is accepted at face value and not checked. As a result, he has won many competitions, some with very good prizes. I have told him that it’s cheating and he shouldn’t do it. But should I inform the tournament organisers and, maybe, jeopardise my job?
Delightful as is the prospect of seeing your boss hauled before some kind of golfing tribunal, his clubs broken over the knee of the presiding officer, the embarrassed members of his foursome averting their glances like something out of The Four Feathers — is it really worth your job? Ethically speaking, reporting your boss to the proper authorities is permitted but it is not required.
There is a duty to report wrongdoing when you can prevent serious imminent harm to another person. That is not the case here (unless your boss’s drives are so maniacal that he’s likely to propel a ball through an opponent’s skull), so you are not obliged to become the golf police.
But nor are you forbidden. Anyone can alert officials to rules infractions. And it is our willingness to do so that helps to preserve the integrity of the game. However, risking your professional future is a high price to pay to improve the quality of amateur golf.
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In your place, I’d be reluctant to do so unless I could minimise that risk by acting discreetly — the anonymous letter, the photocopy of your boss’s handicap certificate, the photographs of him in bed with a tournament official’s wife. OK, perhaps not the last suggestion.
Can you suggest solutions to this ethical dilemma? Or do you have dilemmas of your own? Write to: The Ethicist, Times Features, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. E-mail: ethicist@thetimes.co.uk. Readers’ solutions will be published on Friday.
The Ethicist originates from The New York Times Magazine.