The adage says that golf is a game of integrity. Violate the code and your repuation will always bear that bruise. But why stop at golf? Grant Boone examines if it really is not that you've won or lost, but how you played the game.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

First off, I apologize for last week's GMT becoming this week's. I was honoring the television writers' strike out of respect for my brethren and sistren of the quill in Hollywood. I did it on principle, namely the one that says after broadcasting golf nonstop since August and writing columns 40 weeks in a row, a person's brain becomes mushier than a Nicholas Sparks novel.

Then I thought about another principal, specifically the one in my mortgage that requires monthly financial attention, and I decided to submit this column. Principle is always a worthy discussion topic and even more so on the heels of another Veterans Day. I doubt the brave men and women who've fought for America's freedom through the years were thinking about protecting our rights to all-new episodes of "According to Jim." But their decision to do what they felt was right has afforded us the blanket luxury of deciding where and when we will take a stand.

People who make their living with clubs have principle in spades. And in those rare occasions in which some of them don't, they pay dearly in the worst possible currency: their reputations. Vijay Singh is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. He's won 31 times on the PGA Tour and another 20-plus around the world. Though he's about as popular with the press as a cash bar, Singh has plenty of friends up and down the range and is always happy to share a swing thought or two. But if you hang around enough locker rooms - not in the way Captain Oveur meant it when he had Joey in the "Airplane" cockpit - you'll still hear whispers from some players that Singh is a cheater, all because of an incident 20 years ago when Veej was kicked off one of the Asian tours for allegedly pencil-whipping his scorecard. What he's done since that time, including his 15 spotless years on the PGA Tour, can't change the minds of many players who say, "Once a cheat, always a cheat."

Stewart Cink, the former All-America golfer at Georgia Tech and current All-American player/husband/dad, is a multiple Tour winner and regularly represents the U.S. in various and sundry Cups. But the perception of Stewart Cunk in the eyes of some of his peers after a playoff win at Harbour Town in 2004. He beat Ted Purdy on the fifth extra hole, thanks in large part to a perfectly struck L-wedge from a lie Cink himself perfected per a local rule allowing the removal of loose impediments in waste areas. It was the most liberal use of a definition since a deposed Bill Clinton told a grand jury, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is," in response to allegations that the former President failed to remove the loose impediment that was Monica Lewinsky from his waist area.

Clinton, of course, was guilty. Cink, on the other hand, was exonerated by Tour officials after they painstakingly scrutinized every frame of that controversial sequence. Still, some players drew a line in the sand at the line in the sand Cink essentially drew with his index finger behind the ball, believing he abused the liberty granted him by that rule. For many, Cink's innocence is irrelevant on the course of player opinion.

Golf is unique in that it's largely self-governing. Countless players through the years have called penalties on themselves in big events and small. Bobby Jones docked himself at the 1925 U.S. Open for inadvertently causing his ball to move, an event he would inadvertently go on to lose by one. Jones' response to the encomia showered upon him for his sportsmanship was to say something to the effect of, "You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank."

Most players echo that sentiment, but sometimes the lines aren't so clearly drawn. I once broadcast an event for Golf Channel that challenged the principles of both player and television network. While preparing for our first round telecast, our cameras caught a player attempting to mark his ball after missing a putt. As he bent down, he stopped first to brush away some debris. On the final flick of his finger, the player nicked his ball and caused it to move from its original spot. He then put his coin down, picked the ball up, and called for a rules official. We saw his conversation with the official but couldn't hear what was being said. We saw the player gesture as if he was marking his ball, but we didn't see him make any motion to suggest he was flicking away debris. The rules official deemed he should replace the ball but not add a penalty stroke because he was in the act of marking the ball.

It wouldn't have been that big of a deal had the guy not shot 63 that day and gone on to win the tournament three days later by two.

The producer of the telecast and some of my fellow announcers remain convinced that the player knew what he did was wrong but only told the official what he knew would exonerate him from penalty. However, you never saw a replay of the incident during the Golf Channel broadcast that day or any day because it was and still is the position of that producer that a network isn't there to police tournaments and that we, in effect, were accidental spectators in that particular case.

The situation begged multiple questions:

1) Did the player tell the official the whole truth or did he conveniently leave out the part about the flick? 2) Would the official have ruled differently had he known the whole story or seen the video evidence? 3) Do television networks have a responsibility to either provide video evidence to Tour officials if asked or proactively report possible rules violations, even if they happen before or after a telecast?

I'm not sure whether the player acted on principle because I couldn't hear what he told the rules official. And you can't accuse my producer of being unprincipled, even if you disagree with the principle to which he adheres.

Speaking of Golf Channel, you may have read between the lines that this current incarnation of my career there has come to an end. If not, go back over my last few GMTs and pay close attention to such subtle hints as, "This is my last tournament as a Golf Channel announcer." While I was given no substantive reason why I wouldn't be back, I'm told by reliable sources that at least one VP was PO'd at GMT. Specifically, the pieces I wrote lampooning the inaugural PGA Tour Playoffs, the early rounds of which aired on Golf Channel. If so, he must've had a full bladder. I've written about it nearly every week since August.

Five hundred years ago, William Tyndale was martyred for trying to translate the Bible into English. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was exiled last century for exposing the evils of the Soviet empire. I, apparently, am out for comparing the FedEx Cup to Austin Powers (read here). Give me liberty or give me a judo chop.

I don't exactly know what I would've done had I been told by a Golf Channel executive that my future there would be jeopardized by criticizing the PGA Tour here. I do know I wouldn't have written something I didn't believe just to make the Tour look good. Maybe I would've ignored the playoffs all together and focused on a lighter subject like the Soviet prison labor system. Either way, it would've been nice to at least have the decision to make.

But there's no crying in golf broadcasting. I had a nice run at the Channel, made some great friends of players and colleagues, and leave knowing I performed honorably. My business hours there may be over, but like The Conchords' Jemaine says, "Two minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven." I will confess when I got the news last month, my reaction was not unlike Austin Powers' as he was about to be lowered by an unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism into a pool of mutated sea bass: "First, I plan to soil myself. Then, I plan to regroup and think about the next move."

Fortunately, I have plenty of work with others who haven't grown weary of me yet, including the good folks right here at PGA.com. And seriously, how ridiculously blessed are we that TV writers can strike and TV announcers simply find another mic? This wretched excess came from an even more wretched reality, which the men and women of our armed forces continue to experience on a daily basis so that we don't have to.

Laying down one's life for another. Now that's a principle that'll preach. Happy Veterans Day.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. His column appears on PGA.com each Wednesday and every day during major championships and other big events. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.