Check Your Scorecard before Signing

[Asheville]

Don’t let this be you. 😠

Stroke play championship final round.

Player in the last group misses left off the tee, punches out to just in front of the green, chips on and two putts for a bogey.

In a huff, player signs his card and storms off. Scoring checks for two signatures and eighteen scores, adds them up and posts the score on the scoreboard. (Notice to Players defines “returned” as posted on the scoreboard.)

It now looks like we’ll have a playoff between two competitors for the trophy. However, it becomes known (and I don’t know how) that “player in a huff” had made a 5 but signed for a 4 on #18.

The difficult task falls to the tournament director in explaining to him why he’s DQ. Player understands, but won’t let it go.

Another player (incidentally, not his marker) takes home the trophy.

Don’t let this be you. That’s why the scorecard has a tear-off strip at the bottom.

[Moxley]

I don't understand. 

He qualifies for the playoff based on a 4, which was a 5 - so then he wouldn't have won anyway??

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Moxley said:

I don't understand. 

He qualifies for the playoff based on a 4, which was a 5 - so then he wouldn't have won anyway??

He’d have finished second though. Instead he was DQed.

[HonestyPolicy]

On 5/18/2018 at 9:31 AM, iacas said:

He’d have finished second though. Instead he was DQed.

I think what Moxley means is that he doesn't understand why the guy "won't let it go". Rule 6-1: The player is responsible for knowing the rules. So if he knows he got a 5 and mistakenly wrote down a 4, and he signed the card without checking it, and the card got "posted", he is DQ and he is responsible for knowing all of that and it's likely that he does. So he has no reason to "not let it go" and no one to blame but himself. He likely is behaving the way he is because he thinks that if he complains enough he'll get some sort of "compensation". OK maybe I'm reading a little too much into it, but I've seen it over and over again not only in my golfing travels but all over this website.  

The gentleman's game, which is what this game is suppose to be, is often not played by gentlemen.

It sucks to lose, especially this way, but the correct way to handle this, which is easy to say hard to do for many, is to realize he made a mistake allowing his own anger to get the best of him and go shake the winners hand and focus on not making that mistake again, ever. If he's a good enough  player to be in contention this time, he'll get another chance another time. As with all mistakes, if you learn something from them, they aren't entirely mistakes.

Edited June 18, 2018 by HonestyPolicy
editing error

[Moxley]

To clarify, I was questioning why it mattered given his actual score, which is what Erik answered. 

Obviously he should have dropped it - although I feel clubs can be harsh about minor errors on scorecards, reporting an incorrect score is a major error even if it was unintentional.