A player has three responsibilities in a stroke play event.1) Get to the first tee on time.
2) Hole out their ball on every hole.
3) Make sure there are 18 correct scores on their scorecard at the end of the round as well as the proper signatures. They can spend as long as they want in there making sure its right. I've had players be still in there checking their cards when the next group arrived because they wanted to get it right.
Most DQ's happen because a player is pissed and doesn't pay attention or wait for the people in scoring to double check it. I'm not going to say that happened with Jordan, but he did just double bogey the 18th.
Does the Committee really know what the player's shot?NO, in many cases they don't.
Having been the Chair of Scoring Central volunteers at a PGA Senior Championship, I can assure you that the walking scorers make tons of mistakes or find out about things they didn't see or know happened. We were getting radio calls all day to change scores on the computer that were entered incorrectly in their handheld devices. Even after the cards were returned we had to change scores because score the player and marker reported was different than what the walking scorer entered and it got resolved in scoring. So, how do we get the final word? By the player telling us what they shot which they do by returning a scorecard.
I keep hearing the "pundits" on Golf Channel saying that ShotLink has all the data. But, they don't or they only get it by word of mouth. For example, if a player is in the trees, ShotLink may not be able to see them. They may take two strokes to get the ball out. I assume the walking scorer reports that to ShotLink.
Also, ShotLink doesn't always know if a drop was for a penalty or not. Again, the walking scorer needs to report that to them.
Also, there is one walking scorer for a group of three players. If A is in the left trees and B is in the right trees, they might not see a shot.
I don't think they have ShotLink at the second or third courses at some events or some of the overseas events. This would mean that they would have to tell the players that they have to certify the scores sometimes but not others. Lets make it more confusing. Also, other tours don't have ShotLink so the players would be having to remember to sign for their scores when they play in those events.
Changing the RulesThe Rules on scorecards have been liberalized several times over the past 10-15 years.
1) Don't add a penalty that you didn't know you incurred, we'll add the penalty and an additional two strokes instead of DQ'ing you.
2) People didn't like that when it happened to Lexi, so we'll just add the penalty and not the additional two strokes.
3) You didn't make sure your handicap was correct on your scorecard. No problem, we'll call that Committee error and fix it.
4) There is now a Model Local Rule (L-1) that, if used, says you don't get DQ'ed for not signing your card (or your marker not signing the card). Instead you get two strokes. Note to any club pros out there, use this Local Rule!
So, the Rules could be liberalized some more and allow corrections on the cards, probably as a Local Rule and with a two-stroke penalty added. Maybe it will happen. The Rules have been liberalized in so many ways I can see it being a possibility.
How do you deal with the mistakes when they happen and affect the cut or pairings?
Every major organization has policies in place for how to deal with this. I've been gone for 5 years so my info might be out of date, but when I was at the USGA we said that once the pairings or match play brackets were published they couldn't be changed. We had a case at a USGA championship where a player came into the office after we'd published the match play bracket and told us he'd signed for a wrong score. He was DQ'ed and his opponent got a bye. We weren't going to try to round up the players who had been in the playoff and play it.
So, assuming the Tour has something similar they would just go with the cut as it was.