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At our annual golf club couples tournament, my good friends won the cup by one point. However, the cup was given to the runners-up because a member erroneously reported to the tournament committee that my friends had cheated. When the club president returned from vacation and discovered the travesty, he called and then wrote to my friends apologizing profusely for the unfortunate mistake. Even though he acknowledged that my friends rightfully deserved the cup, he couldn’t take it back from the runners-up. Shouldn’t the errant runners-up be good sports and give the cup to the real winners?

–P.H., Southampton, NY

This is a question of ethics. What do the club’s tournament rules say about such disputes? In a perfect world, the cup should be graciously returned to the legitimate winning couple. Only then, will the good name of the golf club be reinstated. The Rules of Golf, perhaps unfortunately, does not indicate how to deal with such situations. In its concise pages, players don’t cheat—though they may be tempted to bend its sacrosanct pronouncements. It is not a manual of human nature. Your friends should rise above the injustice.

~Didi