Last week at the LPGA Tour’s Chevron Championship, one of the players in contention was best known for a cheating scandal from four years ago.
In a 2022 Korean LPGA Tour event, Ina Yoon admitted to knowingly hitting and using the wrong ball. The 19-year-old rookie from South Korea was slapped with a playing ban of three years from that tour.
Being labeled a cheater is just about the worst thing a pro golfer can be called. It’s one thing for your buddy to lie about his score or improve his lie; it’s another thing entirely for a professional to bend the rules when livelihoods and legacies are at stake.
Below are 10 of the worst cheating allegations in golf history. Keep in mind that most of these are allegations. While there is likely some truth to them, not all of them were proven as fact.
10. Simon Dyson (2013 BMW Masters)
This is an example of something that wouldn’t be considered cheating today but was considered cheating prior to modern rules changes.
In 2013, Simon Dyson was playing in a European Tour event when he used his golf ball to tap down a spike mark that was in his line of play. That wasn’t allowed at the time. Now you can tap down spike marks, no problem.
He was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard, fined £30,000 and given a two-month suspended ban. A panel deemed it a “momentary aberration” rather than premeditated cheating.
Unlike a lot of the other incidents on this list, there is clear video of Dyson. He definitely uses his ball to hit the green and admitted as much afterwards. However, he said he wasn’t intentionally trying to cheat.
9. Justin Doeden (2023 Commissionaires Ottawa Open)
This is a recent one but it’s one of the very few high-profile golf cheating cases that comes with a confession.
Playing on PGA Tour Canada, Doeden made a double-bogey 7 on the final hole to miss the cut. However, he changed his score to a 5, allowing him to make the cut on the number.
One of his playing partners was looking at the scoreboard after the round and saw Doeden’s name two strokes lower than it should have been. He raised the issue with officials and it came to light that Doeden and his playing competitor had signed his card with the 7 but Doeden asked for the card back after the fact and changed his score.
The 28-year-old pro from Minnesota withdrew from the tournament and took to social media to say that he cheated, calling it the “biggest mistake” of his life. “I let my sponsors down. I let my competitors down.”
8. Colin Montgomerie (2005 Indonesian Open)
Known informally as “Jakartagate,” Colin Montgomerie was accused of improperly replacing his ball in a bunker following a rain delay at the 2005 Indonesian Open.
The incident happened during the second round as play resumed the next morning after a weather delay. Upon returning to a greenside bunker where he left his ball, Montgomerie allegedly placed his ball in a much better position, allowing himself to save par.
While on-site officials absolved Monty of wrongdoing, other pros were not as kind. Sandy Lyle later called the move “a form of cheating.”
Montgomerie would later apologized for an “unwitting error” and donated his £24,000 prize money.
7. Ina Yoon (2022 Korea Women’s Open)
As mentioned, Yoon served a harsh penalty for admitting to playing the wrong ball out of the rough during the opening round at the 2022 Korea Women’s Open.
Speaking to Golfweek during last week’s Chevron Championship, Yoon explained that she was pressured into hitting the ball by her caddie.
“I wasn’t sure what to do because this had never happened to me, so I was a bit frazzled,” said Yoon, now 22 years old. “My caddie said to hit it. I shouldn’t have listened, but I did. I should have reported it right away, but I was really nervous and scared about that. I missed the cut, and I thought it would be OK. The people around me told me that it shouldn’t be too much of an issue, so I listened.”
Yoon later self-reported but over a month had gone by at that point. Her caddie gave interviews saying that he gave her the option of hitting the ball or not, which Yoon contends was not true.
“He said that I chose to hit the ball, and people believed that,” said Yoon. “People believed what the caddie said, and I was pretty upset that that became the truth at that time … he told me to hit it, but at the end of the day, I am the player and the player takes responsibility. I think I was just young and naive and I listened to it.”
Yoon’s three-year ban was reduced to 18 months after she gathered substantial support from players and fans with a 5,000-signature petition. She has since made her way to the LPGA Tour and is playing well, finishing tied for fourth at the Chevron.
6. Jane Blalock (1972 Bluegrass Invitational)
Anybody ready for a lawsuit?
Jane Blalock v. Ladies Professional Golf Association was a lawsuit that took place between 1972 and 1975 following an incident where Blalock was allegedly observed replacing her marker incorrectly at the Bluegrass Invitational.
We have no video footage but we do know Blalock was initially fined $500 and disqualified from the tournament. After that, 27 LPGA players signed an affidavit demanding “that more severe action be taken,” leading to a one-year suspension and the Tour putting a hold on her earnings, around $50,000.
This might seem like a strong reaction but Blalock had been suspected of marking her ball incorrectly for a long time. The situation had just boiled over during that Bluegrass Invitational.
Blalock filed a $5-million antitrust countersuit and a federal judge ruled that “LGPA players cannot police their own members” and that Blalock’s suspension “was ill-founded.” She was granted a temporary restraining order on the suspension and finished her LPGA career with 27 victories.
5. Matt Moroz (2022 Korn Ferry Tour Q-School)
While far from the most notable name on this list, the story of Matt Moroz—which was brilliantly captured by Ryan French back in 2022—is an unbelievable and shameless example of a professional cheating.
Moroz was playing in pre-qualifying for Korn Ferry Tour Q-School in Nebraska when he brazenly cheated multiple times. It started on the fifth hole during the final round when Moroz hit an approach shot to the par-4 that appeared to finish about 60 yards short of the green. But Moroz and his caddie raced ahead of their playing partners and claimed the ball was holed for an eagle.
A couple of holes later, Moroz pulled a ball into a hazard. A spotter on hand marked where the ball crossed. While everyone was helping another player look for their ball in the same hazard, Moroz had dropped 30 yards ahead of where his ball crossed and he claimed that was his original ball.
Incredibly, Moroz chipped in for birdie on the final hole to make the cut. However, an in-depth discussion among everyone involved concluded that Moroz would be disqualified.
Moroz claims to have made 36 aces in his career. Yes, three dozen holes-in-one.
I’m sure there have been bigger liars and cheats in the golf world over the years but the legend of Moroz is almost hard to believe.
4. David Robertson (1985 Open Championship qualifier)
You likely have never heard of David Robertson, a little-known Scottish pro from four decades ago.
But his cheating incident is one of the most egregious ones high-level competitive golf has ever seen.
During the 1985 Open Championship qualifier, Robertson was caught red-handed. Witnesses and caddies accused him of moving his ball to a better lie at least five times with reports indicating he moved his ball significantly closer to the hole on greens.
His trick? Robertson would get to the green first, pretend to mark his ball and then move his ball closer to the hole.
Based on reports, you can feel pretty confident this one happened. Robertson has denied the allegations but the evidence against him was so damning that he received a 20-year ban from the European Tour. That is not a typo.
He paid a $7,000 fine and would later be reinstated as an amateur after a seven-year wait.
3. Vijay Singh (1985 Indonesian Open)
Details on this one remain murky but Vijay Singh was accused of changing his scorecard in order to make the cut at the 1985 Indonesian Open. That resulted in a disqualification from the event and a lengthy suspension from the Asian Tour although the exact amount of time was unknown.
What we do know is that the suspension definitely happened. Singh, who has a notoriously prickly relationship with media, has never set the record straight. On the rare occasions he has mentioned anything, he attributes the scorecard error to a recording error by his playing partner.
In a 2000 Sports Illustrated article by John Garrity, he writes that the players involved in the incident were adamant it was a case of cheating.
“It was not a misunderstanding,” said an American player who was there. ‘”All of us who were around are very upset that Vijay denies this.”
Singh left the Asian Tour, became a club pro for a brief stint and eventually worked his way to a Hall of Fame career on the PGA Tour.
2. Gary Player (1983 Skins Game)
Player’s victory in the 1974 Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St. Annes has long been marked by controversy despite the fact he won by four strokes. There are rumors that, while looking for his ball in the rough on the 17th hole, Player’s caddie dropped a fresh ball after the original one couldn’t be found.
But unlike that unconfirmed story, there is an incident at the 1983 Skins Games where the cheating was immediately called out in a very public way.
At the inaugural Skins Game at Desert Highlands in Arizona, Tom Watson accused Player of removing a rooted leaf growing behind his ball while playing a pitch shot on the 16th hole. Whereas a single leaf on its own can be removed as a loose impediment, a leaf growing out of a branch or root can’t be moved.
Player tied the hole and later won $130,000 after claiming the 17th hole.
According to a New York Times report by Dave Anderson, who overheard the conversation, Watson confronted Player after the round on a dirt road, saying, “I’m accusing you, Gary. You can’t do that. I’m tired of this”.
Player responded: “I was staggered. Breaking the rules is, after all, the most heinous charge to be laid against any golfer. When it is aimed at a champion the repercussions can be monumental.”
It’s arguably the most notable incident of a famous golfer calling out another famous player for cheating.
1. Patrick Reed (multiple times)
I didn’t want this entire list to be Patrick Reed incidents so we’re just going to group everything together here.
We have allegations that Reed altered his scorecard during qualifying rounds while playing at the University of Georgia.
As a pro, Reed was accused of cheating at the 2016 Barclays when former CBS analyst Peter Kostis witnessed Reed use multiple clubs to “test” his lie in deep rough, trampling down grass behind the ball to allow for a lower-lofted club to be used.
Perhaps most famously, Reed swept sand from behind his ball in a penalty area while hitting a shot during the 2019 Hero World Challenge. Reed, who claimed his actions were unintentional, was penalized two strokes.
There was also an incident at the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open, which Reed went on to win. During the third round, Reed picked up his ball to check if it was embedded before a rules official arrived, despite video evidence suggesting it bounced and almost definitely could not have been plugged. He was cleared by officials but faced harsh criticism from fans.
There is no doubt Reed has faced the most cheating allegations of any top-tier player in golf history.
What do you think of this list? Let me know below in the comments.
Top Photo Caption: Patrick Reed has been accused of cheating multiple times. (GETTY IMAGES/Richard Heathcote)
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