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O Lord my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
if I have repaid my ally with harm
or plundered my foe without cause,
then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,
trample my life to the ground,
and lay my soul in the dust. –– Psalm 7:3-5
Recently, PGA Tour pro Sahith Theegala was notably praised, not for his achievements, but for his mistake. He could have gotten away with it. Nobody noticed it. The replays didn’t expose it. Theegala wasn’t even sure he had done it, and the rules officials were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he reported it to them. Yet, something didn’t sit right with him.
Golf, that good walk spoiled, is a royal and ancient game with meticulous rules and hidebound, inviolable customs passed from generation to generation. Golfers pride themselves on preserving the honor of the game. Among those rules/customs is the expectation that players call penalties on themselves, a rule broken more often than the chips at the bottom of a bag of Ruffles. The rules get a little squirrelly when your golf ball lands in a bunker (aka - sand trap). You can toss a club into the bunker, lean against a club to keep your balance, or strike the sand with your pitching wedge in anger. However, you shall not ground your club next to the ball before your swing or touch the sand on your backswing, a violation that results in a two-stroke penalty. Well … Theegala intuited that he could have, maybe, possibly, perhaps, conceivably grazed or moved a few grains of sand during his backswing. Even if he did, it did nothing that would have benefited his shot. Though no one, even Theegala, could confirm if it happened, and though the officials were giving him the benefit of the doubt, he said he wouldn’t be able to sleep with the question in his mind, and so he took the two-stroke penalty. With the penalty, he slipped to third place for the tournament. No biggie, right? Well … the difference between second and third in this tournament meant a difference of $7.5 million. Talk about honoring the game!
The power of the story, however, wasn’t the monetary sacrifice. Rather, the power of the story was the rarity of someone holding himself to such a high standard of accountability. Our worship includes a confession of sin, but perhaps along with that we should include a confession of spin. Accountability is rare and truth is dispensable in a culture of blame. It cannot always be someone else’s fault. However, when we are wrong, when we mess-up, screw-up, fumble, muff, botch, offend, transgress, defraud, or wound, we habitually spin the narrative to evade responsibility or accountability. Since when could the creed, never apologize, be touted as a strength?
This is why Sahith Theegala’s insistence on taking the penalty is so refreshingly honorable. Sometimes, I struggle with the Psalms in which there are many voices declaring innocence and assigning blame. However, amidst all that, there are refreshing moments when the psalmist voices a willingness to own their trespasses. “O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my ally with harm or plundered my foe without cause, then let the enemy pursue and overtake me…” Could that become a healthy addendum to our prayers? Strength is not revealed in spin, but in a willingness to be held accountable.
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