Golf: Lance has no time for golf cheats

Lance Armstrong in action. Photo / AP

He admitted to cheating during all seven of his Tour de France victories and is currently serving a lifetime ban from cycling. But Lance Armstrong says he would be "heartbroken forever" if he was caught moving his ball in the rough during a round of golf.

In an interview with Golf Digest, the Texan, apparently speaking without irony, said the sport adhered to a code of honour that did not exist in cycling, at least during his era.

But he insisted that that was what he loved most about it.

"Golf is different from the culture of cycling when I was competing, and that's putting it mildly," Armstrong said. "Cycling, it was the Wild West. Nobody considered doping cheating. It was an arms race where absolutely anything went, and it was every man for himself.

"You might consider me the last guy to have anything to say about cheating, but golf is different. I love adhering to a code of honour that we in cycling didn't have. If I moved my ball in the rough and got caught, I wouldn't just regret it, I'd be heartbroken forever."

Armstrong's comments have already prompted a hail of 'irony is dead' style posts on social media, while others noted he said he would only be heartbroken if he was caught.

The rider made some interesting observations in the interview including that, in his view, Tiger Woods had been punished too severely for his indiscretions. Woods, he said, was the victim of a changing media which was "no longer compliant to athletes and celebrities" but was more concerned "with the scoop".

Armstrong also likened the riding style of Britain's 2013 Tour de France champion Chris Froome with the famously unconventional golf swing of Jim Furyk. "He's got a choppy pedal stroke," Armstrong said of Froome. "His arms are sticking out, his head is down, and he's all over the bike. He's the Jim Furyk of cycling, unconventional in every way. Except that it works. It's paced in a way that gives his unusual mechanics time to fall together. The golf swing can be the same way."