It's All In the Lie

By MICHAEL QUINN

The savings and loan crisis. The B.C.C.I. caper. Insider trading. Think of all the notorious business scandals that briefly enriched white-collar crooks during the greedy '80s. All those financial fiascoes might have been prevented with a simple lie-detector test: golf.

For proof, consider Golf and the Business Executive, an "attitudinal study" (translation: poll) by Hyatt Hotels & Resorts. In the survey, nearly half of 401 executives agreed that "the way a person plays golf is very similar to how he or she conducts business affairs." At least some were speaking from self-knowledge: 55% admitted cheating at golf at least once. The offenses included moving the ball to get a better lie (41% of the executives), not counting a missed tap-in (19%), taking an extra tee shot (13%), intentionally miscounting strokes (8%) and secretly producing a fresh ball while pretending to look for a wayward one in the woods (6%). Such behavior has dire implications for the nation's Better Business Bureaus, since one- third of those who confessed to cheating on the links also admitted to pulling fast ones on the job.

Conclusion: if only someone had noticed Charles Keating Jr. and colleagues emerging from sand traps with suspicious ease, American taxpayers would not now be billions of dollars in the hole.