We’ve all done it. Whether it was an oversight, whether we were in a rush, or whether it was just utter stupidity on our part, we’ve all made a scorecard mistake and paid the price.
I’ve seen all sorts as a referee – winners who have forgotten to sign their cards, teams that haven’t filled in the gross scores correctly, players who’ve dropped their cards into the box and then realised they’ve made a big mistake – and I’ve had to disqualify people who would have picked up prizes.
It didn’t feel good but there was always the argument that we only had one job. Just take some time to fill in the scorecard properly and everything will be fine.
That said, in an age where a lot of our scores are submitted digitally – whether that’s through apps or on a computer, players could say they felt a little hard done by if they made an administrative error on a piece of paper.
Then came Jordan Spieth and what happened afterwards could now have a big impact in your own club competitions.
Before we get to what’s available in our monthly medals, let’s go back in time to the second round of the 2024 Genesis Invitational.
Spieth was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard – he’d certified a 3 instead of a 4 at the par 3 4th hole, and while he thought he’d shot 72 he’d made 73.
Because the number he’d put his moniker on was lower than he’d actually scored, he’d breached Rule 3.3b (3) and the penalty for that is an early bath.
Internet rules watchers obviously weren’t the only ones who didn’t think that was fair. Fast forward to June and the PGA Tour, along with the DP World Tour, brought in a change to their terms of competition.
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It was an amendment to what counted as a “scorecard returned” and provided players with a 15-minute window to correct any errors on their card – even if they had left the scoring area.
Once that time had passed, the scorecard was classed as in. “In general,” the body said, “all players will have the ability to correct an error within this 15-minute period which may have previously resulted in a penalty or disqualification”.
PGA Tour scorecard rule: What’s happening?
What does antics on the PGA Tour have to do with us, you might ask? Well, the Rules of Golf now allow your club to bring in their own version of this policy if they wish.
The latest quarterly clarifications to the rules have added extra guidance into the committee procedures.
‘Section 5A (5) – When Scorecard Has Been Returned’ says a committee or competition organiser has the “option of adopting a time-based policy when specifying when the scorecard has been returned”.
With the Rules allowing for a policy that uses a duration of time to define when a scorecard is returned, the guidance says “such policies allow a player to return to the defined scoring area and correct a scorecard mistake within that duration of time, but do not change the requirement for the player to promptly proceed to the scoring area after they finish their round”.
Clubs that want to use such a policy are advised to determine how much time they want to allow, and when it begins, “such as when: the player left the defined scoring area, the group completed their last hole of the round, or the player’s scorecard was entered into an electronic scoring system”.
This will add to the options clubs have, with a Local Rule already available that allows committees to reduce the penalty from disqualification to two strokes if a scorecard hasn’t been “certified” by a player or marker.
It remains to be seen how many will actually take up this new option to give players time, but for every committee member who has ever had to DQ somebody for a silly mistake, or been approached in pleading fashion by a player only to have to turn them down and boot them out of the event, it’s certainly something to think about.
Have your say
What do you think of this Rules of Golf clarification on scorecards and the PGA Tour scorecard rule? Let us know by leaving a comment on X.
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