[Brian Gracely]

PAR is typically based on a yardage, which is growing more and more irrelevant and leads itself to confining architecture.

HANDICAP is based on past scores, and is skewed towards trends of good golf.  It's also irrelevant in any legitimate tournament play.

Considering that 75% of handicaps don't travel well, and most matches/rounds are played locally with friends, should handicap just get bundled into the first-tee discussion about the bet or match format?  

[Tom Huckaby]

Brian - isn't that pretty much what happens among friends anyway?  When's the last time anyone bought - without question - one's USGA index as the final determiner?

 

I do think handicap remains relevant, if only for flighting people properly for tournament play.  I've said many times one goes into a straight net, non-flighted tournament, at his own risk if he wants to win giving strokes.  But for determination of flights, and then matches within those, handicap remains very relevant.

I guess I don't get your point that well here.  Care to explain/flesh out?  I think I must be missing something.

TH

[JohnV]

In the US, you shouldn't shoot to your handicap 75% of the time either at home or away.  Remember it is the average of your 10 best scores out of 20.  To say that 75% of handicaps don't travel well seems to be obvious for that reason to me.

If you are playing a course where the course rating is higher than the par, you should should your handicap (vs par) even less frequently.  This is because handicap is based on the course rating, not the par.

In "legitimate" tournament play, the only bottom line is what the total number of strokes was (or how the match came out.)  Par means as little as handicap.

In my mind, Par is the more irrelevant number as it really should have no effect on any part of the game.  Either in gross or net play.

By the way, as long as Rule 6-2 exists, I would dispute your statement that handicaps are irrelevant in legitimate tournament play.

[Bill_McBride]

The guys at my club have lousy traveling handicaps because almost all their golf is either match play or best two balls of a foursome kind of stuff.  There are always a lot of five footers given because they aren't involved in the best ball, or the hole is lost in match play.

As a result these guys (and me too because that represents most of my home golf) are fooling themselves.  Some of our 9 handicappers couldn't break 100 playing the ball down and counting all the strokes in a medal competition.

I suspect that's pretty typical all across the country.  The UK system seems much stronger to me.

[Tom Huckaby]

Brian - that works for me.

You'd still need handicaps - you're just changing the determination from stroke by stroke to groups of strokes.  Who makes the determination?

Bill - again, that's a problem of application, not the system.  If people follow the rules, the system works just fine.  And again as we're saying in the other thread, there's no doubt the UK system is stronger, it just simply won't work here.  Go read TEP's post toward the end of shivas' thread for the reasons why, which we've stated numerous times before.

TH

[Bill_McBride]

How long would a round of golf take if everybody putted out in a two or three best balls of the foursome vs the other groups?   An extra 45 minutes?  To me it's not worth all the extra time!

So long as handicaps are applied accurately in handicapping matches, it really doesn't make much difference.  The guys who have those funky handicaps are just hurting themselves.  It's the OTHER guys who mess things up, the 9 handicappers who shoot 72 "when the chips are down."  (AKA sandbaggers!)  

[TEPaul]

Man, maybe I've just led a totally sheltered life or something but where I come from and where I've been in golf these kinds of handicap problems I'm hearing on here just don't exist and if they do it's so minimial that the perpetrator is pretty well exposed out of the box.

Is it the handicap system that's to blame or just the people who refuse, for whatever their reasons, to use it correctly?

[Doug Siebert]

Sean,

Do they get to name the holes of their choice before or after the hole is played?

[ForkaB]

Yet another great example of cultural differences--the GBI concept of having dual handicaps.  One in your friendly game, based on recent performance and brutal in its application--the other your official handicap, used for tournaments only.  And, handicap committees are ususally very aware of any significant disparity which develops, particulalry if you are playing much better in friendly games than your official handicap might suggest......

[Tom Huckaby]

Rich:

What makes you think that doesn't happen in the US?

Man you have been away way too long.

 

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()