Hole Handicaps Change for Stroke vs. Match Play; Anyone Seen This?

[Jim Nugent]

(i) Odd Strokes/Even Strokes

The USGA recommends that the odd-numbered strokes be assigned to the holes on the first nine and the even-numbered strokes to the holes on the second nine.
This format equalizes, as nearly as possible, the distribution of handicap strokes over the entire 18 holes, and makes matches more equitable.

Seems like it makes matches more equitable, if that is how the holes are distributed, difficulty-wise.  But what if one nine or the other has most of the hard holes?  Doesn't the current system make matches less equitable?  

[Roger Wolfe]

We have it at my club, and it drives me crazy.  The stroke play handicap speaks for itself.  The hardest hole is 1 and so on.  The match play handicap takes into account the avg discrepency between good players and bad players on a given hole.  The number 1 handicap hole in match play would identify the hole where there is the biggest avg score discrepency between a 1 and an 18.

I, too, am struggling with why hole handicaps are needed for stroke play... I guess a net tournament playoff is the only reason or perhaps a Stableford or other system.  This was a big topic at our club regarding only the easiest and hardest holes.  It took a lot explaining and, armed
with statistical analysis, I think we have the right system in place.  The trick is to educate the members that the difficulty of the hole is irrelevant.

We tracked all the scores during a 3 day member member tournament back in 2008.  Our 16th hole is a 200 yard downhill par 3 over a creek with
a deep forest to the right, large tree guarding the front right, fescue banks surrounding the green.   The hole played the hardest on the course over the weekend with an average score of 3.8222 for ALL competitors meaning it would rank #1 overall.  However, when you take the average score of your scratch golfer (+3 to -3), and the average score of your bogey golfers (-14 to -18), the results were very different.  Scratch averaged 3.667 while Bogey averaged 4.000.  The difference was only 0.333 meaning, using the USGA guidelines for hole handicapping, it would be ranked #18.

If a club determines that they NEED the holes handicapped for stroke play for whatever reason then they should be commended for using two different systems.  Yes, its confusing... but its fair.  In the end, isn't "fairness" the true goal of handicappng in the first place?

[Jim Nugent]

We tracked all the scores during a 3 day member member tournament back in 2008.  Our 16th hole is a 200 yard downhill par 3 over a creek with
a deep forest to the right, large tree guarding the front right, fescue banks surrounding the green.   The hole played the hardest on the course over the weekend with an average score of 3.8222 for ALL competitors meaning it would rank #1 overall.  However, when you take the average score of your scratch golfer (+3 to -3), and the average score of your bogey golfers (-14 to -18), the results were very different.  Scratch averaged 3.667 while Bogey averaged 4.000.  The difference was only 0.333 meaning, using the USGA guidelines for hole handicapping, it would be ranked #18.

That's because par 3's are the easiest holes on the course for bogey golfers, on average.  Par 4s are next, and par 5s are usually the hardest for them.  All for the same reason.  They don't have to hit as many full shots on the par 3s.  They will be somewhat near the green in regulation or on it.  On par 5s, they might take 5, 6 shots or more to get near the green in regulation.

With good golfers, it's exactly the opposite.  Par 3s are the hardest and par 5s the easiest. 

Which shows again how hard #14 at Pebble really was last month. 

[Bill_McBride]

There is stroke play and there is stroke play. If you are playing golf and you simply deduct your handicap from your gross score there is no need for a handicap table. But there are competitions where it does matter what a golfer scores on particular holes. In these cases it makes sense to use a table which is course based rather than opponent based.

(Net) Par and Bogey.
You get one point for each (net) par or (net) bogey on your scorecard,

(Net)  (Modified) Stableford  
Your stableford points accrue on a net basis each hole, total is added up.

(Net) Better ball, multiball.
Tour team's total is determined by the best net score(s) on each hole, and toted up  at the end.

That makes sense, thanks.

I still don't understand why there have to be two tables but not everything has to make sense!

[Roger Wolfe]

That makes sense, thanks.

I still don't understand why there have to be two tables but not everything has to make sense!

You know... you are right Bill.  I thought a playoff might mean something... after thinking harder...
aren't playoffs basically match play anyway?  At least sudden death.  I guess a British Open style
4 hole playoff might qualify.

[Ken Moum]

There is stroke play and there is stroke play. If you are playing golf and you simply deduct your handicap from your gross score there is no need for a handicap table. But there are competitions where it does matter what a golfer scores on particular holes. In these cases it makes sense to use a table which is course based rather than opponent based.

(Net) Par and Bogey.
You get one point for each (net) par or (net) bogey on your scorecard,

(Net)  (Modified) Stableford  
Your stableford points accrue on a net basis each hole, total is added up.

(Net) Better ball, multiball.
Tour team's total is determined by the best net score(s) on each hole, and toted up  at the end.

That makes sense, thanks.

I still don't understand why there have to be two tables but not everything has to make sense!

Long par threes are probably as good a reason as any.

In the case of my home course, someone used a simple chart of hole difficulty to start the process of allocating strokes.  Since the hardest hole was #7, a 210-yard par three, and since it fell in a logical place to get the first stroke, it is currently our #1 handicap hole.

But, as Roger's post above notes, a long par three is a horrible place to give a stroke--if the goal is to allow the weaker player a chance to halve the hole. 

We play a nine-hole match play league every Wednesday from May to Sept, and I can tell you that the recipient of that stroke views it as an outright gift.  It is rare for someone to halve that hole while giving a stroke.

If we did it correctly, one of the long holes on the front should have been the first stroke.

But for fourball competitions, having the hardest hole be #1 makes perfect sense. 

I suspect that is makes little difference in most competitions.

[Carl Johnson]

From Jay: We have it at my club, and it drives me crazy.  The stroke play handicap speaks for itself.  The hardest hole is 1 and so on.  The match play handicap takes into account the avg discrepency between good players and bad players on a given hole.  The number 1 handicap hole in match play would identify the hole where there is the biggest avg score discrepency between a 1 and an 18.

From Roger: I, too, am struggling with why hole handicaps are needed for stroke play... I guess a net tournament playoff is the only reason or perhaps a Stableford or other system.  This was a big topic at our club regarding only the easiest and hardest holes.  It took a lot explaining and, armed
with statistical analysis, I think we have the right system in place.  The trick is to educate the members that the difficulty of the hole is irrelevant. . . .

Roger, not that we actually need separate stroke play handicapping for each hole, but we do have competitions of sorts when it would be relevant, e.g., our recent guest day in which four-man teams competed on the basis of best-two-balls-net out of the four on each hole, with the total net score of such two best balls determining the winners.

[Roger Wolfe]

From Jay: We have it at my club, and it drives me crazy.  The stroke play handicap speaks for itself.  The hardest hole is 1 and so on.  The match play handicap takes into account the avg discrepency between good players and bad players on a given hole.  The number 1 handicap hole in match play would identify the hole where there is the biggest avg score discrepency between a 1 and an 18.

From Roger: I, too, am struggling with why hole handicaps are needed for stroke play... I guess a net tournament playoff is the only reason or perhaps a Stableford or other system.  This was a big topic at our club regarding only the easiest and hardest holes.  It took a lot explaining and, armed
with statistical analysis, I think we have the right system in place.  The trick is to educate the members that the difficulty of the hole is irrelevant. . . .

Roger, not that we actually need separate stroke play handicapping for each hole, but we do have competitions of sorts when it would be relevant, e.g., our recent guest day in which four-man teams competed on the basis of best-two-balls-net out of the four on each hole, with the total net score of such two best balls determining the winners.

Carl nailed it! 

[TEPaul]

While the specific question in the title of this thread is pretty complex for most to get their minds around apparently coming up with cogent answers to this question is even more complex.

But leaving that aside for the time being---eg why does golf need a different stroke hole allocation for stroke play than match play?----- there is something I think I should mention on here that resulted from our proposal to the USGA and its GHIN Department around fifteen years ago now. That proposal and its correspondence went on for close to two years.

Our (the proposers) basic premise was that if you require hole by hole posting for handicap purposes rather than just the posting of a single ROUND score for handicap purposes, given the computer technology out there, you really could solve almost every handicap problem known to man (other than just outright cheating (sandbagging) of course which essentially falls into the second component of handicap systems----eg "PEER REVIEW."

Clearly that kind of thing would ultimately work better and be more effective for "intra" club use compared to "inter" club use but nevertheless it would go a very long way anyway to solving handicap problems and creating far greater "equitableness" with far more handicap matches or perhaps most all handicap golf.

I can explain more later but here's an example:

If I (basically a scratch player) play a match against say a 10 handicapper from my club the computer could determine precisely on which holes and in the order of importance (to both players) I should give that 10 handicapper strokes. However, the order of importance and the holes themselves may be quite different for some other 10 handicapper from my club I might play and on and on with say other scratch players at my club against various other 10 handcappers and ultimately frankly anyone against anyone else no matter what their handicaps may be.

The point is if you collect the data on all invidual players the computer can figure out what anyone's best handicap stroke allocation should be against anyone else and that could even be quite different for matchs involving players of the same handicap differential or any other handicap differential. That is what computers do---that is basically what they are all about----crunching mathematical data, making individual comparisons etc, etc.

I could basically put my name into the computer for a match with any other player in my club and that computer in a New York second could spit out the perfect and most equitable handicap stroke allocation on the card for our PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL match.

Frankly, it just can't get any more equitable than that!

However, the only requirment to acheive this is that all of our scores for the rounds we've played at our course MUST be posted HOLE by HOLE and not as a SINGLE ROUND SCORE!

  

[Sean_A]

To me, this idea of different stroke holes depending the game is right there with the idea of a good matchplay course compared to a good stroke play course.  Its the stuff of nonsense and just another way for golfers to complicate matters.  I bet the guys who think of this stuff are the same ones involved in writing the crazy rules.  Far too complicated.  Hit it, find it, hit it again.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"Hit it, find it, hit it again."


Sean:

Frankly I have never met any Rulesmakers or Rules writers (and I certainly have known a lot of them) who has ever had a problem with any golfer doing THAT! 

[Jason McNamara]

I did not see this in the above replies, but I semi-skimmed, so apologies if this is redundant.

Is the idea of match-play hcps to move more of the stroke holes away from the end of the course?  In the rare case where holes 15-18 are (say) stroke holes 3, 7, 5, and 1, a 7 hcp gets only 3 strokes in the first 14 holes against a scratch player.

Honestly, I think at most courses it shouldn't make much of a difference.  But I could see a handful of exceptions.  (And then at the exceptions, the match-play version could probably be adopted for all comps without great upheaval.)

[Ed Oden]

From Jay: We have it at my club, and it drives me crazy.  The stroke play handicap speaks for itself.  The hardest hole is 1 and so on.  The match play handicap takes into account the avg discrepency between good players and bad players on a given hole.  The number 1 handicap hole in match play would identify the hole where there is the biggest avg score discrepency between a 1 and an 18.

From Roger: I, too, am struggling with why hole handicaps are needed for stroke play... I guess a net tournament playoff is the only reason or perhaps a Stableford or other system.  This was a big topic at our club regarding only the easiest and hardest holes.  It took a lot explaining and, armed
with statistical analysis, I think we have the right system in place.  The trick is to educate the members that the difficulty of the hole is irrelevant. . . .

Roger, not that we actually need separate stroke play handicapping for each hole, but we do have competitions of sorts when it would be relevant, e.g., our recent guest day in which four-man teams competed on the basis of best-two-balls-net out of the four on each hole, with the total net score of such two best balls determining the winners.

Carl nailed it!  

Sorry, I am not sold.  In the scenario Carl describes, while the competition is ultimately a stroke play event, the key factor is which two best balls count toward the score.  And that is essentially a match play determination, only between partners rather than between opponents.  The same logic as match play handicaps applies (i.e., which holes does a bogey golfer most need the stroke in relation to a scratch golfer in order for his score to count on any given hole as one of the best balls).  The fact that those scores are then used in a stroke play format is irrelevant.

[James Boon]

I used to play a course where the last two holes were pretty much the hardest two, but they were stroke 3 and 7, to allow for the matchplay type adjustment so the strokes didn't become redundant. There were times when I cursed the fact that playing off 6, I wasn't getting a shot on that last hole in a Stableford comp (and therefore why not have both a matchplay and a strokeplay Stroke Index on the card), but in all honesty I was getting it somewhere else, so it shouldn't really matter that much.

One thing I've often wondered about strokes in matchplay, and thats why do we give them on the harder holes, as surely they are hard enough for both. Lets imagine I'm playing a guy off 10 and I play off 6, so thats 4 shots I'm giving them (or 3 if its 3/4s) When I'm giving my opponent a shot on SI 1 and they happen to be a decent player who makes par, then I'd have to birdie the hardest hole on the course for a half. However, why not give them there shots on holes with Stroke Index 7, 8 and 9? Afterall, thats where the differences between our two abilities should lie?

Cheers,

James