Are we more trustworthy than our American peers?

Why don't Americans trust each other?

It would appear that the game of golf, seen by most as a game of honesty and integrity, is quite up to par south of the 49th Parallel.

After all, ho do you explain the USGA fobidding those playing by themselves to use the scores they record as honest enough to count toward their handicap index? Land of the Free? Not so in golf, it appears, because in the United States you need at least one playhing partner before any additions can be made to an index card.

In Canada, things are a little more balanced. Here we don't need another pair of eyes to verify we're telling the truth. I guess that's maybe because were Canadian, citizens of the nation that is seen as polite and honest.

Or maybe, just maybe, our national amateur golf body is a step ahead of our neighbours and that not everyone likes to play with others all the time.

Wanting to play by yourself doesn't make you a cheat, or a liar. It maybe means you've had enough of the hubbub in our everyday life and want a break from that noise, that you want to take a nice walk and enjoy the peace and quiet.

In a time where golf is starting to really worry about a downturn in numbers, something like this ruling by the USGA seems strange.

As a single player chances are pretty good that you're not going to make it all the way around the course by yourself. Sooner or later you are going to catch up to other groups, or yes even other singles, who will in all likelihood ask you to join them. What then?

In Canada you join up and at the end of the day your score is your score. What about in the U.S. though? Does that part of the round where you had witnesses suddenly become credible while before that, well, who knows how many mulligans and gimmes you took.

One thing I've noticed in my life on the course is that those who take putts, or hit another ball after a poor shot at no cost to the scorecard aren't the kind who keep handicaps (or if they have one, it's what they think they play to, not a documented fact).

If they are in fact taking those shots off their total before they have a playing partner or two, they'll continue that practice even after they've  joined up with others. That's human nature.

Those that are serious about what they score on the course are going to tell the truth. That's the nature of the game, what makes golf the sport it is.Does the USGA really think those people are so nefarious they're going to shave a stroke or two here and there, or for that matter, add a stroke every so often.

People that keep an index do so in good faith and it demeans them to have an organization as big and as powerful as the USGA say they don't trust their members.

So, here's my solution: Have all those single American players come north of the border and tee it up here. Nobody is going to point fingers at you for doing so because the RCGA trusts its members enough to tell the truth.