In regards to the recent Jordan Spieth incident, of which his incorrect scorecard disqualified him from a tournament… I mean, this is 2024. Every shot he takes is being recorded and discussed. Everyone in charge of running that event already knew what his score was, so why does an error like this erase his results? Is any other sport like this in which the players can be disqualified for being bad at math?
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Golf is a game in which the same rule book that governs play at the highest of levels also governs play at the most basic contests. And as it’s been made abundantly clear recently, there is a strong desire to keep it that way.
While PGA Tour level competitions have walking scorers with each group, that is really not a universal case at any levels below. So players are required to participate in the score keeping process in a pretty integral way.
To preserve the integrity of an event, players must be held accountable for accurate score keeping, and while there may not have been malicious intent in this situation, that has not always been the case. There was a case on the PGA Tour Canada last year of a player changing his card after being signed.
So if there is a need for participant scorekeeping at the local am level, state am level, mini tour level, USGA competition level, etc… and there is a desire to have every level of play use the same rule book, the penalty must be enforced the same at all levels, regards if participants score keeping is required or not.
That’s just part of the game. The people who make the rules decided that’s how it has to be done. And the players, by playing in their tournaments, agreed to these rules. So even if it seems silly or pointless, they’ll still be disqualified for breaking the rules because that’s what they agreed to.
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Back in the early 60s an Argentinian named Roberto De Vincenzo won the Masters. He signed an incorrect scorecard and Bob Goolsby was declared the winner and got the green jacket.
I am an official PGA walking scorer. While we do keep score and validate the player’s scorecard with players after their round, the “real” purpose of our job to get the updated score out to the public in real time during play. Public in this case means the PGA, on course video boards, television crews and feeds, Vegas (seriously) and sports websites like ESPN for example. We also are connected to event officials and a have a radio to call them in when a caddy (typically) requests a rule call.
One of the big things about golf is that the same set of rules that governs the highest pros governs the lowest amateurs.
So while it is reasonable to expect an official scorer at a PGA Tour event, that’s obviously not possible at local high school matches.
I don’t find it a particularly compelling reason, but that’s what it is.
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Because it’s a game, games have rules (in fact that’s all they are, a set of rules) and that’s one of the rules. Think it’s stupid? Fine, but that’s golf.
This is almost as stupid as baseball’s unspoken rules. This happens when the players forget that it’s a game and they decide what’s fun, and what’s not
Yep. This is a rule in [Aussie rules football](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCp28zzO6Pw&ab_channel=SecretBase). If a team is caught with any extra players on the field, they loose all of the points they had earned until then. Apparently it almost happened once in 1975 and attempting to enforce it resulted in players running off the pitch and hiding so they could not be counted.
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