I'd like to point out from the first post, that if he signed a card for a stroke that was one shot "too high" (which I don't think is plausible in this situation) that that would not be an incorrect scorecard and would not subject him to any ramifications or disqualification. Rather the sore recorded, if is higher than the number of strokes played, is the score for the hole and therefore his score would be accurate not "too high" and certainly not subject to penalty.
So if he had penalized himself one stroke for say tending the flagstick when playing from off the green, he'd be ok because that's not illegal, and the score he recorded would stand. Given that here he signed a card one shot too low, he's disqualified.
If he put down a score that was too high, that wouldn't have been incorrect in the sense that he would have been disqualified, but I didn't say in my original post that it was incorrect in that sense. Instead, all I meant was that his card simply had the wrong score for that hole [and therefore his round]--either one stroke too high or too low--a fact that he learned that night.
Fair enough. I took the following language to mean otherwise.
"So he knows that night that he signed an incorrect scorecard -- his score on the card was either too low (because he brushed the leaf and gave himself only one additional stroke), or, I suppose, too high (because he didn't really brush the leaf, though not sure how he could believe that, having already assessed himself a penalty). Nevertheless, he decides not to say anything at the time, plays two more rounds, qualifies for the next level, and later decides (8 days after the incident and 6 days after the tournament) that he needs to say something."
My point was just that signing for a card "too high" wouldn't be an incorrect scorecard and further that he woudn't need "to say anything at the time" that he discovered something that is not against the rules in any way.
But again there's no such thing as recording a score one stroke "too high" (for an individual hole). If you record a score that's lower than what you "took" that's a dq. If you record a score that's equal to or higher than what you "took," what you
write (not what you "
took") IS your score (when you sign and turn it in). It's the official (and correct) score, not "too high."
But I was just wishing to offer some clarification and not trying to pick fights.