The Clubhouse

DO THE RIGHT THING: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported about a 14-year-old from southern Wisconsin who gave everyone a lesson in sportsmanship.

Back on August 11, Zach Nash won a junior Wisconsin PGA tournament. While having a celebratory soda with his mentor and Rivermoor Golf Club head professional Chris Wood, they discovered that Nash had too many golf clubs in his bag.

The teen recalled that the night before the tournament, he was visting with a friend, who left his 5-wood behind. The next morning, Nash put the club in his bag, not realizing that it made a total of 15 - one over the limit, according to Rule 4-4 ("the player must not start a round with more than 14 clubs").

Under the rule, a player is penalized two strokes for each hole played with more than 14 clubs with a maximum of four penalty strokes. Because Nash didn't notice the infraction during the tournament, no penalty was applied and he ended up signing an incorrect scorecard, which means an automatic disqualification.

Now came the hard part. Would he come clean and admit his error or would he just let it go, after all it was now hours after the tournament had ended and everyone had gone. I mean, it's not like the PGA Championship or Masters... this was the Milwaukee County Parks Tour Invitational!

But Nash knew the right thing to do was to give the medal back. He called the junior tour director for the WPGA, explained what happened and sent back the medal so it could be presented to the rightful winner Dane Reinhardt, who finished three strokes behind Nash.

Nash said the game of golf bases itself on honesty and players calling penalties on themselves.

"I couldn't live with myself if I [kept the medal]," he said.

Nash’s father said his son is a regular teenager—he talks back to his parents, picks on his brothers—and was a bit surprised the teenager didn’t consider, just for a moment, keeping the mistake to himself. But he said he did the right thing and he and his wife were proud.

The incident has had a lasting effect on Nash. In the very next tournament he played, he counted his clubs three times. The faux pas has made him a better golfer, he said.

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SEVEN ON SEVEN: John Elway pulled an Elway on the Elway hole.

“Seven on 7,” the Hall of Famer said sadly after carding an even-par 72 Wednesday in his first senior golf tournament since turning 50 in June, the HealthOne Colorado Senior Open.

Elway hit a TaylorMade Penta 2 ball from the rough only to realize when he reached it again on the fairway that it wasn’t his.

So, he penalized himself two strokes.

“And after I hit it and I got up in the grass, I looked at it and I said, ‘Aw, that’s not my ball.’ So, we went 10 yards farther and there was my ball, and it was in much better shape than the one I hit.”

There were only two fans watching, along with an Associated Press reporter and an AP photographer, who were far enough away that Elway and his caddie, Jeff Nickless, could have kept quiet and nobody would have known about the blunder.

Elway did the honorable thing, though, went back and played his ball.

“And I counted my scorecard seven times there because I wanted to make sure I didn’t write down a wrong score, either,” Elway said. “It was disappointing but I was able to come back and I actually played really well. So, it was just a mistake.”

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SEPTEMBER TO REMEMBER: LPGA player Paula Creamer recenty tweeted "This is my september picture for my calendar sold in japan." http://tweetphoto.com/42721665

How quickly can we get a shipment of these calendars into Canada!

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BUBBLE BOY: With the second event of the FedEx Cup playoffs set to start Friday (and finish Monday because of the long weekend), here are some players of note who will be looking to move into the top 70 in order to advance to the third event next weekend:

Davis Love III (currently 72nd), Chad Campbell (83rd) and Vijay Singh (86th).

Matt Jones starts the tournament in 70th place while Stephen Ames - the only Canadian left in the playoffs - will need a good showing to maintain and/or improve upon his 69th place standings.

Tiger? Thanks to his 12th place finish last week he moved from 112th to 65th - his best FedExCup ranking of the year. Right now, that would put into next week's event and he'll need to finish no worse than 57th this weekend to at least ensure he stays in the top 70.

One player who won't be moving on is Kenny Perry. Sitting 90th in the standings after the Barclays, Perry pulled out due to exhaustion and has gone home to rest for the next few months.

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WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE: A day after the PGA elected to suspend its pro-am rule which cost Jim Furyk a chance to play last weekend at The Barclays comes word Phil Mickelson has decided to withdraw from this week's pro-am event in Boston. While the PGA frowns upon its high profile players not playing in the pro-am - hence the draconian rule which clipped Furyk last week - Mickelson will apparently not be penalized as he used a special option which allows him to take part in an "alternate sponsor function" instead. PGA Tour senior vice president of tournament administration, Andy Pazder, tells Golf Channel that this is maybe a better use of Mickelson's time seeing as he'll be dining with 20 executives and clients for an evening rather than playing golf with three amateurs for five hours.

It should be noted that Mickelson was one of the more outspoken critics of the pro-am rule last week when Furyk was disqualified, calling it "ridiculous".

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COMMISSIONER FOR A DAY: What's the one thing Stephen Ames would change if he were commissioner for a day? Golfweek's Jeff Rude finds out.

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FINAL WORD:

“Without question. I think that he is one player that I would have to pick. Even though he's having a down right now, I think he would be one that I would want on my team.” - Arnold Palmer on whether or not he would pick Tiger Woods for the Ryder Cup team

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Files from the Associated Press were used in this report