Please, I beg of you …
Don’t get cute with my pen-and-paper scorecard.
In the headline, I’ve referenced circling birdies, but there’s lots that goes into this gripe. Sadly, for the sake of Google Search, I couldn’t jam-pack everything into one all-encompassing phrase. Title tags have a 60-character limit, so anything longer would’ve compromised this post’s traffic.
Clicks.
I’m a slave to them.
Anyway, let me back up a bit …
If you have no idea what I’m on about, this is an event-based beef. Tournament play is competitive play. Naturally, because it’s competitive, scores are kept – the UDisc app exists.
Also, the PDGA offers live-scoring, too. In my neck of the woods, though, many league nights and C-tiers still stick with the good, old-fashioned paper stuff. And when technology is used to track scores, it’s not uncommon for a traditional scorecard to be added as a backup method.
So as to avoid cheating, with paper scorecards, at least, everybody on the card takes a turn jotting down scores for three or four holes. When it’s my turn, without fail, my scorecard comes back to me with all sorts of shapes on it. If circles drawn around birdies was the extent of it, I’d probably look the other way on this. But following in the footsteps of ball golf, bogeys get squares drawn around ‘em, too. And should I have the audacity to card a double- (or triple-) bogey, yup …
You guessed it:
That’s two (or three) squares.
What’s more, depending on where disc golfers call home, they all seem to have a different understanding of how this short-form method of scorekeeping works. For some, it’s holes with penalty strokes that get circled – not birdies. Others, however, feel writing a small “P” next to the carded number is what’s most effective. And should someone miraculously nab a hole-in-one, without missing a beat, the “1” is proudly surrounded by a five-point, Comic Sans-style star.
You can see where the confusion starts to set in …
Different disc golfers using different methods with different levels of penmanship proficiency is a recipe for turning a scorecard into a back-alley impersonation of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Write the number. Be done with it.
Simple enough.
In theory, doing things this way should make for an easier (and faster) verification of end-of-round scores. But this is hardly quantum physics – it’s addition and subtraction. Furthermore, on the side, you’ve got a smartphone that’s crunching numbers, as well.
Keep my old-school scorecard clean with what I’ve shot.
Nothing more, por favor.
And get off my lawn, while you’re at it.
Have anything to add? Take to Twitter to let us know – we’ll actually (for real) get back to you.
