How Golfer Craig Stadler came to own a $37,000 pair of trousers has nothing to do with a paroled bank robber who served 4 1/2 years in federal prison. Stadler's startling disqualification of two weeks ago is a complicated parable about the relative weight of rules. But it helps to view the affair from the vantage point of Rick Meissner, late of the golf circuit, who in lieu of a more traditional backer knocked off 19 savings and loans as he toured.
A hopeful player of not inconsiderable gifts, Meissner qualified for U.S. Opens at Hazeltine and Winged Foot during the '70s. But his full-fledged entry into the profession was delayed by suspicions that as a young country-club golfer in Maryland, he was a cheater. It seems Meissner's errant drives had a way of reappearing in-bounds. On those murky grounds, his first application to the P.G.A. was rejected. Here is the pertinent point: when he later faced the bar of justice, Meissner readily admitted poking his pistol in the nose of all those tellers, but he bitterly denied ever cheating at golf.
Unlike football, golf has no heritage of slipperiness. Offensive linemen are encouraged to think of undetected holding as an art form. Similarly, a baseball outfielder is expected to hold trapped balls aloft just as if they were caught. In baseball, overt cheating -- scuffing balls, corking bats -- brings only winks, while the real appreciation is reserved for breaches in the spirit of sportsmanship and fair play. Billy Martin waited for George Brett to hit a homer before objecting to the pine tar on his bat. The old Brooklyn pitcher Clyde King used to twist his cap slightly askew in hopes that the base runner on first would think he was glancing over. King got the idea from wearing two left sneakers in basketball games so that the defender could never tell which way Clyde was going by looking at his feet. Most sports are played this way, but not golf.
Tour golfers are forever calling penalties on themselves for imperceptible violations. Preparing to putt at the past Westchester Classic, Raymond Floyd noticed the ball move microscopically and docked himself a stroke. He fell out of contention, but the shot still meant $4,500 in lost pay. Twice, that same situation has cost Tom Kite tournament championships and a total of $59,800. Such scrupulous honesty is the rule in professional golf, though there are exceptions. Using her trusty antitrust iron, Jane Blalock once had to go to court to fight off a lynch mob of fellow competitors who wanted to ban Blalock for the way she marked her ball on the green. Bob Toski, her teaching pro at the time, prescribed professional help of a different kind. Publicly he wondered if she wasn't "subconsciously" compelled to win. In the epilogue last year, Toski withdrew for a time from the senior tour amid allegations that he mismarked his ball.