Sportsmen complain so much about so many things that it's often difficult to differentiate between a genuine 'get it off my chest' criticism and a 'life's a bitch' whinge.
Major tournaments are not complete without a juicy beef about the refereeing, the state of the pitch/court/greens, the antics of an opponent or the biased nature of the crowd.
In most cases a simple rule of thumb applies. When a loser starts mouthing off at length about a perceived injustice he is having a whinge, when a winner talks openly of a problem he is making a justifiable point.
And when both winners and losers speak with one voice, the organisers are in a whole heap of trouble.
Golfer Howard Clark is, without doubt, a whinger.
He moaned incessantly during the Hong Kong Open several years ago and made few friends in the process.
So when one reads that Clark was hacked off at the state of the Collingtree Park greens during last week's British Masters, the initial reaction was to brush aside the story as a whine.
