He was only trying to help

Yesterday we played at a course that is owned by the military (*), and my caddy (males at this course, not cute young girls) seemed a little too keen for me to card a good score. I'm guessing his willingness to cheat was his way of trying to get a better than average tip out of me at the end of the round.

Even though my scorecard could have used a few less shots, I'm a bad enough golfer to realise that there's nothing to be gained by cheating, and I would have only been cheating myself if I went along with my caddy's tricks.

He tried every trick in the book -

Replacing my ball a few inches closer to the hole after marking it on the green;

Trying to convince me that I scored a 5 rather than a 6 on that hole (I had to remind him about the one shot penalty for taking a drop after ending up in a water hazard);

And, the classic "drop a new ball down the trouser leg" when looking for a lost ball in the rough. He tried hard, since a ball of the same brand and number as my wayward tee shot rolled out from his trouser cuff (I had a box of new balls in my bag all with the same number).

Whenever I pulled him up on these cheating attempts he just shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

* The military have many business activities in Indonesia, since the national budget only allocates around half the funds necessary to support the armed forces, so the top brass have to find other ways to raise money to keep the army, navy and air force in operation