The legal thing and the right thing

There can be a difference between doing what is legal and doing what is right. In his latest run-in with the Twitterverse Saturday, Patrick Reed very precisely illustrated that difference.

By now, in the wake of Reed’s five-stroke victory at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, there can be no question that what Reed did was legal under the rules of golf. I write that knowing that virtually every self-certified expert on Twitter disagrees.

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In the Twitter realm, Reed already stands convicted of cheating…again. His offense? Picking his ball up from what he said was an embedded lie before calling any fellow competitor, rules official or character witness – assuming such could be found for Reed – to confirm that his second shot on the 10th hole had in fact embedded.

The indictment continues: When Reed did summon a rules official, it was to present him with a fait accompli. The ball already in his hand, Reed showed the official an indentation he said had been made by the ball. (The Twitterverse is convinced that Reed had actually carved out the indentation after the fact. )

All of this left the official no choice but to rule that Reed’s ball had indeed been imbedded, earning Reed a free drop.

Since Reed is the only one who actually saw the ball in its untouched state, none of the above can be proven or disproven by objective evidence. But tournament officials repeatedly backed up the judgment of the official on the scene that the ball had been embedded.

Reviewing the ample video of the scene, they also determined that Reed had not violated the rules by first picking the ball up, ostensibly to identify it.

On the CBS TV telecast Sunday, every rules expert and every expert commentator concurred with the finding that Reed did not deserve a penalty. He had, they unanimously agreed, acted within the game’s laws.

But, both in golf and in life, there can be a difference between doing what is legal and doing what is right. And also without exception, every CBS expert – from Nick Faldo to Dottie Pepper to Ian Baker Finch to Frank Nobilo – said Reed’s handling of the situation had been somewhere between poor, ill-advised and wrong.

What Reed should have done, they all agreed, was – before touching his ball – summon one of his playing partners for an independent look at the scene of the crime. Had they been in Reed’s shoes, they all said that’s what they would have done. Not because the rules require it – they don’t – but to protect their reputations.

Reed’s reputation, of course, has been beyond the bounds of protection since well before he denied grounding his club in a bunker a year and a half ago when video evidence clearly established he had done precisely that.

Back in college he was booted off the University of Georgia team amid allegations of cheating. Several of the players from that Georgia team are now prominent Tour pros, and they have memories.

Plainly the right thing for Reed to do Saturday would have been to let a fellow competitor have a look at that ball to confirm that it was indeed embedded. He didn’t have to legally. But he should have.

One of the great aspects about golf is that it teaches lessons, some of which extend beyond the bounds of the course. The Farmers episode perfectly illustrates one of those lessons.

Sometimes you can get away merely doing the legal thing. But what you ought to do is the right thing.

Had Patrick Reed done the right thing as well as the legal thing Saturday, it’s possible that a few people might have a higher image of him today. Not a lot, probably, but a few.