A high school golfer with the talent to win the Division I State Championship won’t be playing in Columbus because he didn’t carefully check his official scorecard before signing it.
Hudson sophomore Sam Fauver, the Explorer’s number one player, needed to make birdie on the last hole at Pine Hills for his team to tie for the final qualifying spot in the District Championship on Monday.
But the 18th hole at Pine Hills is incredibly difficult, and Fauver couldn’t get his 40-footer for birdie to drop.
Fauver’s round of 73 was still good enough to send him to OSU Scarlet in two weeks as an individual player. Until it wasn’t.
All high school golf teams have been using the new OHSAA Wanamaker app for live scoring, starting with this year’s Sectionals. That app showed Fauver finishing with a 73.
But the printed scorecard kept by an opposing player is designated as the official scorecard by tournament rule.
Perhaps still reeling from not making birdie at the last to help his team advance (no matter how tall a task that was), Fauver signed his scorecard without carefully checking the hole-by-hole numbers on it.
There were actually three mistakes on his card.
Because Fauver signed for a score that was lower than the score he actually shot, he was disqualified from the tournament.
That DQ also removed his name from the list of individual players advancing to state.
The use of a live online scoring app that showed a correct score, or the fact that another player didn’t keep his score accurately, will be pointed to by some high school golf fans as mitigating factors. “He shot the score, he should move on,” they will say.
But the rules of golf are clear: a player is responsible for checking and correcting a score card before putting his signature on it.
As disappointing as is that resulting DQ, the decision to implement it by the tournament committee was right and correct and true.
So all other high school golfers, take heed: spend two minutes carefully checking your scorecard before you sign it and turn it in.
Sam Fauver will do that going forward from now on, each and every time. A tough lesson learned.
