I have lived and played golf in this region of Spain for 16 years and played lots of society golf where to say the least the recording of scores is ‘creative’ and at times makes no reflection to the number of times the ball has actually been struck and yes you will all have members playing in your society that fall into this category.
As a young junior playing county golf and in events such as the English Amateur and British Amateur it was drummed into me by my father and other senior golfers the need to accurately record your scores and to check and sign your scorecards after events.
I remember playing in the club scratch championship as a 17 year old and after the morning round the leader put his card into the scorers box without signing it and after some time and the use of bent wire he recovered the card and signed it but guess what he only did the same thing in the afternoon round and this time couldn’t recover the card and was disqualified and would have won the event.
That player later went on to be the county champion of champions and runner up in the English amateur championship so a lesson well learnt.
Last week Eddie Pepperall from the European tour managed to get himself disqualified from the Qatar Masters tournament after scoring a 71 and signing for a 71 BUT he noticed that the marker had got the scores wrong on holes 11 and 16 (even though the overall total was correct) and the marker changed the scores and Pepperall handed in the score card and was disqualified because the market had incorrectly changed hole 17 instead of hole 16 by mistake.
The player is responsible for his own scorecard so no blame to the other player who was the scorer but this proves that it even happens to the best.