“… WHY WOULD ANYONE DO ANYTHING TO HELP A FELLOW COMPETITOR SHOOT A LOWER SCORE?”

Back-stopping. If you’ve been watching any professional golf over the past few months, you’ll have seen and heard about this increasingly controversial practice.

You know, when a player leaves a pitch or chip shot close to the flag and doesn’t mark the ball before the next player hits. Some people see this as harmless; others view it as a rather insidious practice designed to give the second player an advantage should the two balls collide.

Here’s the thing though. As long as I have played golf – and I’m sure a long time before that – this sort of thing was seen simply as a way of speeding up play. Especially when playing in a three-ball, the player who has, say, chipped close