Low handicap laments

[Tom Huckaby]

The USGA HAndicap Manual and its appendices  contains a lot of stats on how often a player with an accurate handicap plays at or below his handicap.  My recollection is that it is about once every five rounds and that an average score for a mid handicapper is about three strokes worse than his handicap.  There is also a table that shows the odds of bettering your handicap by various margins. Once you get past four or five shots the odds get very high pretty fast as I recall.  All of which demonstrates that the 20 who shows up at every event and shoots 85 doesn't have a valid handicap or should be at the tables in Las Vegas.

I concur.

BUT... I'm not at all saying it's the SAME 20 shooting 85 gross every time... it just does seem that there's at least one who does this in every large-field event.  Of course it's just a matter of numbers - there are typically a lot more 20s than single digits, at least in the net events I've seen - but still, it does remain a lot easier for a 20 to shoot 85 than a 4 to shoot 69.  I'm guessing the USGA odds would agree with this... I haven't looked.

[Garland Bayley]

... but still, it does remain a lot easier for a 20 to shoot 85 than a 4 to shoot 69. ...

As a 21, I have shot 85 (or better) exactly twice in 5 years. How often have you shot 69 Huck?

[Tom Huckaby]

Garland:

I believe 5 times in my entire 35 year golfing life; exactly once in competition.

And there are a lot more of you then there are of me, Garland.

TH

[A.G._Crockett]

Again, though, the problem that Archie is referring to is NOT how often players better their handicaps, or even the problem of sandbagging.  He's talking about the problem of using a handicap based on stroke play for match play events, even at 80%.

If any of you think the ESC gets rid of this problem, you haven't been pencil-whipped enough lately.  The guy who can put down 7's on his card to reckon his stroke play handicap potentially has much, much more than a 20% advantage over the guy who can only put down double-bogey.

Further, Archie was originally talking about fourball matches, which is where the problem REALLY ramps.  Now if the high cappers ham and egg at all, the low guys are dead.  I could be wrong about all of this, but at YOUR club, do two low cappers win fourball match-play tournaments?  I'd bet on a mid and a high against two lows, all other things equal, every time in a fourball.

[A.G._Crockett]

Garland:

I believe 5 times in my entire 35 year golfing life; exactly once in competition.

And there are a lot more of you then there are of me, Garland.

TH

Huck,

You've heard of risk/reward. You need to take more risk to get reward!  

I find your above assertion hard to believe. There are plenty of courses where the course rating is 69 for a par 70. All you would have to do is play to your handicap potential to shot 69 there.

Garland,
I believe Tom; I've had a single-digit handicap for a decade or so now, ranging as low as 4.0 (currently around 7 and rising FAST!)  and play a course with a rating of 68.3 over a hundred times a year.  I've broken par (70) twice there, and twice elsewhere.  Ever.  

[Tom Huckaby]

Garland:

I play many courses with ratings below 70.  For me to play to my handicap means shooting a gross 73-74 at those.  I've recorded many scores like that, obviously.  There's a HUGE difference between 74 and 69... much more than those five simple strokes.  Most single digit handicappers can attest to this.

Then factor in doing it IN COMPETITION, and well....

69 means making absolutely no mistakes and/or making a bunch of birdies.  It's rather difficult to do; it's nearly impossible to luck into.

85 allows for a lot of mistakes, and a lot of luck to be involved.

Hey, I'm not saying it's EASY for a guy like you to shoot 85 - of course it's not.  I'm just saying the odds are in your favor at lot more than mine.

Then you factor in that if I'm in a net field of 40 players, there are likely to be 5 at most in single digits, 25 at 10-20, 10 over that... well, the odds are even more stacked as to who is going to achieve the low net.  As I say, there are just more of you than there are of me.

TH

ps to AGC - thanks - I have to believe you and I are the norm in our sub-70 results.  You get it.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland:

I believe 5 times in my entire 35 year golfing life; exactly once in competition.

And there are a lot more of you then there are of me, Garland.

TH

Huck,

You've heard of risk/reward. You need to take more risk to get reward!  

I find your above assertion hard to believe. There are plenty of courses where the course rating is 69 for a par 70. All you would have to do is play to your handicap potential to shot 69 there.

Garland,
I believe Tom; I've had a single-digit handicap for a decade or so now, ranging as low as 4.0 (currently around 7 and rising FAST!)  and play a course with a rating of 68.3 over a hundred times a year.  I've broken par (70) twice there, and twice elsewhere.  Ever.  

My logic was flawed. I deleted my post. Need more caffeine!

[Tom Huckaby]

Sean:

I think we're really closer to agreement on this than it seems, at least to comparing the handicap systems.  And I don't bitch about net event results; I just take them with a grain of salt and expect them.  I also don't tend to play in many, for this reason.  Flighted events work so much better and if I have to play net, that's what I prefer.

But we're on the same page when you mention the difference in cultures; I agree 100% with the point that such are the norm there, not so here, and I've made that point countless times before.  That's why I say CONGU works there, our system works here.

As for our experience with the results of net events, I can only report what I've seen in my 25 years or so playing in such things and witnessing them.  The results posted on the NCGA website bear this out as well... it's damn near always the higher cappers that win.

TH

[archie_struthers]

 

I've been gone for about 14 hours, but the USGA has not changed their position on handicaps due to our stirring diatribes.

For those of you who continue to eschewthe position tha low handicappers  have an advantage in better ball of partners   play I've got some land to sell at the coast here in Jersey, which is sure to be beachfront soon. Al Gore told me so!!! lol

As to the Tiger match, a four handicap isn't getting four shots, he's getting eleven. A ten (10) is getting seventeen (17 shots)

We played  a six man game last Monday on a nice day and the low gross better ball was 66, a really good score. The other two teams shot 71 & 72 respectfully. The highest handicap in the group was 7, who played with a two.

The net for these chaps, if they had played against Tiger and Phil with the (7) getting fourteen shots and the (3) getting nine was 54. Yep , sixteen under!!!!!!!!

Player A (2 handicap) shot 72 with four birdies and a double
                 not unusual for him
Player b   (7  "   )  shot 75  with two birdies  (he played great
                   he's erratic but talented, very long

 they ham and egged, but still made a net bogey on a tough par three

their mythical match with Tigger and Phill shows how the plentitude of shots skew the outcome

they had fifteen net birdies nd two eagles, playing of course off the plus seven h-cap

I'm telling you that you can't give 9 & 14 shots match play  better ball to two guys with some basic skills..even if you are Phil and the Golden Child

In forty years of watching playing and listening about golf I have never heard of two low handicappers winning a better ball of partners event   .......net score......  NEVER  !!!!!!

I'll wager no one else can either , think hard, seeee!



ps. match play is worse yet

[Pete Lavallee]

In forty years of watching playing and listening about golf I have never heard of two low handicappers winning a better ball of partners event   .......net score......  NEVER  !!!!!!

That's why they always have a gross division!

[A.G._Crockett]

In forty years of watching playing and listening about golf I have never heard of two low handicappers winning a better ball of partners event   .......net score......  NEVER  !!!!!!

That's why they always have a gross division!

Unfortunately, Pete, they don't!  A lot of club stroke play tournaments are flighted, then played at scratch, with gross and net prizes, but most match play tournaments are played off 80% of handicaps unflighted.

Particular point of contention with me, because my partner for the last few years has been a dear friend who also has won the last two club championships, played college golf, and even played an exhibition match with Byron Nelson back around 1968 or so.  He can PLAY, even at 56!  We've made it to the semis three years in a row, then go out to MUCH higher handicaps each time.  He says he's done with those competitions, and I think I am, too.  Why spend good money to get pencil-whipped to death?

This year, he was two over and I was four over when we got closed out on 16 by a 10 and a 16.  So he has to post a 72 and I post a 74, and we lose.  The greater irony was that neither of our opponents bettered his handicap; we were giving them massive #'s of strokes and they ham and egged really well.  The killer was a stretch where the 16 handicap goes par, par, birdie, par, bogey, with strokes on 4 of the 5 holes.

Turns out a stretch like that helps his team a LOT more than the several LOIBIP's hurt them...

[George Pazin]

Seems to me the handicap system really can't work.

If the low handicappers win, the highs bitch, if the highs win, the lows bitch. The only thing that is somewhat fair is separating into groups and playing gross.

I really wouldn't believe a 20 who shot 85 in competition is a 20. Ever. I know it happens, but the coincidence thing is just too small for me to accept, in light of the additional pressures of competition. My guess would be that someone did something funny, whether it's not doing all the requisite math with slopes and all, or the handicap was not established properly.

[Tom Huckaby]

George:

What separates groups into different flights if not the handicap system?

Outside of that, I don't think it's really INTENDED to work with 4's playing against 20's.  That's just too much of a spread.  I think the intent really is to allow for a few strokes here and there, not a stroke a hole or close to it.

In any case, why do you find a 20 handicap shooting 85 gross so hard to believe?  I see it so often, I think it really is just a luck/avoiding distaster thing for a guy like this, and it can happen without disbelieving the guy's handicap.  Then you factor in the plain quantity advantage of the 20s (that is, any given tournament there are just so many more of them) and to me it's not hard to believe one achieve this damn near every event.

TH

[Tom Huckaby]

Sean:

A UK 5 is usually WAY better than a US 5, and it's not due to US vanity or anything of the sort; it's due to how the two handicaps are calculated.  UK takes only competitive scores, and uses all of them more or less; US counts only the low 10 out of the last 20, and uses all scores.  Thus it's just plain logic that a UK 5 would be a lot better than a US 5.  A US golfer playing a UK golfer straight up based on the same numerical handicap is just making a donation to the UK golfer's college fund.  

So anyway, perhaps the difference here again goes to the very very different ways handicaps are calculated and handled in the two places.  But I am here to tell you over my 25+ years of experience, the higher cappers damn near always win fourballs.  The low cappers here don't have a prayer.

TH

[George Pazin]

George:

What separates groups into different flights if not the handicap system?

Outside of that, I don't think it's really INTENDED to work with 4's playing against 20's.  That's just too much of a spread.  I think the intent really is to allow for a few strokes here and there, not a stroke a hole or close to it.

In any case, why do you find a 20 handicap shooting 85 gross so hard to believe?  I see it so often, I think it really is just a luck/avoiding distaster thing for a guy like this, and it can happen without disbelieving the guy's handicap.  Then you factor in the plain quantity advantage of the 20s (that is, any given tournament there are just so many more of them) and to me it's not hard to believe one achieve this damn near every event.

TH

You are correct on all points. I'm simply saying you use the handicaps to get people among their peers, then let nature take its course from there.

As for the 20 shooting 85, it's the competition part that I don't buy. I just don't see a 20 handicap shooting what is bordering on a career best during competition. If someone did, I would automatically doubt his handicap, that's all I'm saying.

Maybe I'm just biased against 20 handicappers, being one and all.

 

[Tom Huckaby]

George:

I'm all for playing straight up within flights - that is the best application of the handicap system by far.  But giving a few strokes also seems to me to work.  It's when the spread gets to be in double digits that we tend to have problems, and it's really silly when it gets to be over a stroke a hole.

And if you really do doubt the handicap of every 20 who shoots an 85 in competition, well join the club - when he goes up to receive his prize, he's usually not greeted with cheers.  I tend to give the benefit of the doubt myself, so long as it's a different guy each time.  If the same guy does it repeatedly, then we check his shoes for sand.  Doing it once doesn't seem that unbelievable at all to me.

[Tom Huckaby]

Sean:

I don't believe the intent of the USGA is to have every golfer obtain an official handicap, although I'm sure they'd love it if they could.  The intent of the system seems to me to be to allow for the reality of US life, in that monthly or more regular medals are not the norm.  Thus they devised a system that strives to allow all rounds to count.  It seems to me people here like it that way...

Thus I don't see that its obvious that the best way to do handicaps is by using competitive scores.  It is there, where monthly medals are the norm.  It just wouldn't work here, where that is not close to being true.

CONGU works there, ours works here.  Note we're talking about only the negatives today... sandbagging and the like... to me that's a small subset of the overall system.  I do think our handicap system works very well for our culture for the vast majority of purposes and instances.

TH

[George Pazin]

I can see a 20 shooting 85. I can't see him doing it in competition.

The only exception I can really see is if it's a course he's played a ton of times. I know I'm a good 10 shots better on my home course, just due to familiarity and added confidence. I might get lucky there. But I sincerely doubt it would happen during competition.

[Tom Huckaby]

I can see a 20 shooting 85. I can't see him doing it in competition.

The only exception I can really see is if it's a course he's played a ton of times. I know I'm a good 10 shots better on my home course, just due to familiarity and added confidence. I might get lucky there. But I sincerely doubt it would happen during competition.

George, I'm telling you, it happens all the time - it's pretty much expected that one guy will do this in any given large field net event.

And it's not on home courses.

Why is it so hard to believe?  Remember there are plenty of 20s who play a lot of competitive golf, and thus aren't fazed as much as one who does this infrequently.  Oh I know, competitive golf is a very different thing from regular golf - don't I painfully know that - I just do continue to see this as such a regular event, your doubting it seems strange to me.

Remember, if it's the same guy doing it regularly, that's sandbagging.  If it's one guy out of the 20+ in a 40-man field doing it, that's just him avoiding disaster holes and getting a bit lucky.  Why is it so hard to believe one guy will do this?

TH

[Jim Franklin]

I was a 6 in our club championship and shot a 67. What does that say?

[Joe Hancock]

I was a 6 in our club championship and shot a 67. What does that say?

That the tourney was shortened due to rain??

 

Joe

[Jim Franklin]

Unfortunately there was another round before my 67 in which I proudly shot an 81 .

[Tom Huckaby]

Sean:

The USGA system does work very well for classifying American golfers as they play in our culture and allowing people who are relatively close in abilities to have a fair and equal game.

I don't think it's intended to work when so many shots are given.  That is, it CAN work and generally does even so, but the chances for break down on the extremes are a lot greater.

That's why the USGA also advocates adjustment of handicaps on such extremes... that is, using only 90% or whatever... it's all on the USGA site if you care to explore.

Strengths:  it gives US golfers what they want, and generally allows for fair net games.

Weaknesses - peer review policies are great, but getting people to follow them is difficult.  Also we have the breakdowns on the extremes already mentioned.

That's my assessment.  But hell I just play the game.

 

[Tom Huckaby]

I was a 6 in our club championship and shot a 67. What does that say?

That to me says several things:

1. You aren't gonna stay at that 6 for very long;
2. That was one incredible lightning round, VERY much more difficult to achieve than an 85 by a 20; and
3. You still likely would lose net in a large field.

 

[A.G._Crockett]

I was a 6 in our club championship and shot a 67. What does that say?

That the tourney was shortened due to rain??

 

Joe

That a lot of people wanted to kill you?