Calcutta RIP?

[Ken Moum]

Roberts and Helmar, alias "Vitali," shot a net 58-57 for 115, winning by five strokes.

Right there is the heart of the problem.

These two guys had handicaps that were inflated by 14 and 15 strokes respectively, went out and shot more than 30 under par for two days, and only won by 5 strokes....

My club has a handful of guys who seem to be able to shoot par or under in every net event they play in. They are 8-10 handicaps, so they aren't going really low, but 75 to 80 over, and over, and over. One of them, a 10 handicap, won my flight in our recent club championship, shooting 80-76, but his last 20 ronuds for handicap included only two rounds in the 70s, and one 80. The other 17 rounds are 81 to 88.

He beat another 10 who shot 80, 78 and wasn't happy with the way he played. Yet, his last 20 posted rounds only had three in the 70s.

What's the liklihood of that happening?

I can't complain, because I shot my low round of the year on Sat., a 77,, and followed it with a good 83. The difference, IMHO, is that I have never contended in even one tournament here, and these guys are at or near the top in every event.

I have ZERO evidence that they are actually cheating, but this stuff drives me crazy.

[Kalen Braley]

Kmourn,

If we are using any bit of logical processes here, then they must be cheating....consider this.

1)  A handicap is an average of your 10 best scores out of your last 20.  So right off the bat, a guy only has a 50/50 chance to just simply shoot his handicap.
2)  To post 1 score that is several shots below your handi is an extreme outlier...and the chances of doing that are likely in the 10% or less range....but still within the realm of "possible"
3)  To post 2 scores, both several shots below your handi takes these odds to a whole new level where its 1-2% at best to post 2 outlier scores on the low side.
4)  Then throw in the fact that several people are shooting several combined rounds below thier handicap, and I'm not sure how any other conclusion could be made other than a whole-lotta cheating must be going on.

To me its a big strike against the theory of golf being a "gentlemans" game.

[Jason Walker]

My big gripe with them is the ability for a player to bet on a different team.  If he has a chance to win the tournament or to win the calcutta, which do you think he'll do coming down the stretch?  To me, there's no honor in an event where you have the opportunity to win $$$ by losing at golf.

Honor and win by losing?  Huh?  First off, with all due respect, enough with the rules of golf and honor bit.  We're talking about gambling.  Second, understand how a Calcutta works before telling us about your big gripe--in every Calcutta I've played in (quite a few) you're required to carry at least half your own team (either flat fee or percentage of final bid), thereby making it mathematically impossible to not maximize your winnings by finishing as high as possible.

There are many ways to normalize handicaps in these events.  In one very expensive tournament I used to play in (sadly the tournament host was tragically killed in the Bahamas in 2007) it was played over a modified stableford format, it was played over four rounds, each round was adjusted (with max and min adjustments), the tournament guide had a printout of everyone's GHIN page with last 20 round and handicap trend, and everyone's number was verified by their local pro--those that were unable to be verified were hit with an adjustment down and noted in the tourney guide.   First time participants also received a downward revision.  Over the years everyone from a 2 to a 15 index won, and it was usually who could handle the enormous pucker factor over the last 9-12 holes.

[Jason McNamara]

Kmourn,

If we are using any bit of logical processes here, then they must be cheating....consider this.

1)  A handicap is an average of your 10 best scores out of your last 20.  So right off the bat, a guy only has a 50/50 chance to just simply shoot his handicap.

It's not even that good a chance - it's ~25%. A player's average score is 3 shots worse than his hcp.

For more than you ever wanted to know about this, see Dean Knuth's www.popeofslope.com