Curious on your opinions:

I played a match several years ago in the club match play final. The guy I played was a higher handicap than I was and I was forced to give him 18 shots which was the difference between our caps. I played with him regularly at the Canadian and he hit his driver almost every hole and, in so doing, wasted lots of shots and built a huge handicap. When we play the match, he hits his 5 or 7 iron off the tee on almost every hole, stays out of trouble, and whups me (with the strokes).

He changed his game playing safer and thus lowered his score. The problem is he established his cap hitting it all over the place with his driver. I feel like this is cheating and I wondered what others might think. This guy thinks he is a great match player because of his rep for winning handicapped matches. I feel the only reason for this success is that he wastes strokes during his regular games and plays a different game in matches.

Is this cheating?