Why do so many golfers lie about how well they play?

Spent the last few weeks chatting with a coworker about golf because he’s known as ‘the golfer’ in the office. Told me that he’s around a 3 handicap but can sometimes dip down into the low 70s on a good day. A little skeptical, I invited him to play.

Anyways, we played together on Sunday and I counted him shooting a 104 without making a single putt, he took a gimme on all 18 holes. After 14 holes, he ran out of golf balls and had to search in the woods and finished with an old range ball. At the end of the round, he looked me dead in the eyes and said “I think I beat you, I shot a 79” and showed me his scorekeeping app, I laughed and said “good job man, I shot an 84.”

Now usually I don’t care at all what people say that they shoot, but later that day, I found him on the handicap app he uses and he put in a 79 and then on Monday I overheard him telling some guys how great he played. Obviously, anyone that watches him play will be able to tell he’s not great, but has it become a thing to embellish your score by 20-30 strokes?

Edit: No I didn’t play with Riggs

Edit2: also, he is my senior at work so can’t really call him out.