In the hot-take world of social media, it was only seconds after Jordan Spieth’s disqualification from the Genesis Invitational for signing for a lower score than he shot became public that the ALL CAPS and exclamation points !!!! arrived like another atmospheric river last Friday.
The outrage went something like this: We live in 2024, the ShotLink age, with walking scorers with every group, with PGA Tour Live allowing us to watch more golf than any of us should and golf still holds on to the antiquated rule of requiring players to sign their scorecards when they are finished?
Yes, it’s still a rule and needs to remain one – with a possible tweak.
In case you missed the moment, Spieth signed for a 3 on the par-3 fourth hole in the second round at Riviera last Friday when he actually made a 4.
The Rules of Golf allow a player to sign for a higher score than he made but not for a lower one. That’s what got Spieth disqualified under Rule 3.3b(3), and he owned it shortly thereafter.
“Today, I signed for an incorrect scorecard and stepped out of the scoring area, after thinking I went through all procedures to make sure it was correct. Rules are rules, and I take full responsibility,” Spieth posted on social media, minus the exclamation points and emojis.
Others bombarded social media in protest.
Imagine had Twitter/X existed in 1968 when Roberto De Vicenzo cost himself a shot at winning the Masters when he signed for a 4 on the 17th hole in the final round when he had made a birdie-3. Thinking he was heading to a Monday playoff with Bob Goalby, De Vicenzo had to live with the stroke he never played and lost by one.
Rather than go to social media, De Vicenzo plaintively said, “What a stupid I am.”
There have been other instances of scorecard screwups. In the 2000 Benson & Hedges International Open, Pádraig Harrington took a five-shot lead into the final round, only to find out that he had been disqualified because his third-round scorecard had been signed twice – neither signature being his own.
Occasionally, usually in a fit of temper, a player will storm out of the scoring trailer having failed to sign his card. Often, the DQ is more of a technicality because he already was assured of missing the cut.
Yes, the times have changed, and between computers and video and walking scorers, the whole world can see what a player made on a particular hole. All of that can be made available to players to check their cards.
There is also the added security, should they use it, of having a PGA Tour scoring official with them when they sign their cards.
It’s a bit like hitting a home run in baseball. Everyone can see the ball go out of the park, but a player still has to touch all of the bases for it to count.
It’s as simple as having the official read off the 18 different numbers for the 18 holes they played. Players don’t have to add up their scores, just agree that what is on the scorecard is accurate.
Is it really too much to ask a player to do that?
The players don’t have to get their own yardages if they don’t want to. They have entourages to handle everything but the swings they make. They even have a handful of $20 million events without a cut.
Taking care of your scorecard should be a player’s responsibility.
It’s a bit like hitting a home run in baseball. Everyone can see the ball go out of the park, but a player still has to touch all of the bases for it to count.
Reducing the penalty from a disqualification to a two-stroke penalty is open for discussion, but alleviating the scorecard procedure should not be.
Does the punishment fit the crime?
A player can be penalized two strokes for an egregious rules violation on the course but be kicked out of the competition because he didn’t realize that his card keeper wrote down a 3 instead of a 4 on a hole.
When a player with the starshine of Spieth gets booted from a signature event, the reaction is intense. What about fans who wanted to watch Spieth? What about tournament sponsors who lost one of the top draws in the game, all because he got a number wrong?
Changing the rules for tour players would bring the B word back into play: bifurcation.
The world pitched a fit when the ruling bodies wanted to establish one set of equipment rules for professionals and elite amateurs and another set of guidelines for the rest of the world. Part of the charm, critics argued, is that we all play the same game.
“I can see both sides of it, both sides of the argument.” – Rory McIlroy
Tee it up in a club event or a sectional event and the onus falls on the player to sign his scorecard. There’s no ShotLink, no person walking along and punching data into a handheld device to feed the analytics beast.
“If we’re really trying to keep this game like unbifurcated and trying to – you know, the pros play by the same rules as the amateurs, then we all need to keep our playing partners’ scorecards, and we’re responsible for that,” Rory McIlroy said.
“I can see both sides of it, both sides of the argument. I probably am more of a traditionalist than anything else, so I fall into the camp of, it’s worked for so long, I don’t think you really need to change it.”
Add a few exclamation points to that sentiment.