Taoiseach’s failure to come clean below par

IF they were stuck for topics of conversation on the Druid’s Glen golf course in the summer of 2008, Brian Cowen and Sean FitzPatrick might have remembered one of the game’s heroes and his lesson in honesty.

The story goes that in the climax of the 1925 US Open, Bobby Jones accidently nudged the ball while setting up for a shot out of the rough.

Straight away, he notified the marshals, but because he was the only one who saw what had happened, the refereeing decision was left to Jones. The American called a two-stroke penalty on himself and went on to lose the tournament by a single stroke. Commended for his honesty afterwards Jones said: “You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.”