Difference in accessibilty between GB&I and USA

[Mark Pearce]

Tony,

Be honest.  Name 10 UK clubs that have strong 2 ball cultures, to the point of requiring 2 ball play by visitors?

I'll give you RCP and Prestwick as a starter.

Add Royal St. George's and Rye.

Visitor play at RSG, as at Muirfield, can be in 4-balls.  Indeed, when BUDA was at RSG we played in 4-balls.

[Andrew Buck]

Most commonly for me has been a 4 point scotch game that consists of two man teams with points for low ball, low total, birdie and proxy, with points doubling if you get all 4.

Apologies for the sidetrack,but could you explain what a proxy is?

Closest to the pin in regulation.  There are also variations with points for up and down.  

I grew up on the first version, and it's probably not a coincident I'm a reasonably decent ball striker with a relatively poor short game.  I'd also guess where you grow up has dramatic impact on the type of game in favor.  

[Ricardo Ramirez Calvo]

Tony,

Be honest.  Name 10 UK clubs that have strong 2 ball cultures, to the point of requiring 2 ball play by visitors?

I'll give you RCP and Prestwick as a starter.

Add Royal St. George's and Rye.

Visitor play at RSG, as at Muirfield, can be in 4-balls.  Indeed, when BUDA was at RSG we played in 4-balls.

As far as I know, those are exceptions and you cannot play 4 balls any day. They still favor 2 balls. We play every year on a Monday afternoon with a society and we are required to play foursomes.

[Sean_A]

Do folks think there is a big difference between US public and private play formats?  In my experience, when playing public courses I see a lot more people with cards in their hands compared to private clubs.  

I don't think there is a strong 2ball ethic in the UK.  Most would consider it old fashioned and it is.  In my experience, the clubs that definitely preferred 2ball

Prestwick
Worly
Deal
Brancaster
Sandwich
Huntercombe
Rye
Littlestone
Hunstanton
Muirfield

There are a few more, but one gets the idea, very few 2ballers out there!  That said, looking at the list above, one could do a lot worse for a golf holiday.  

Ciao

[Brent Hutto]

As I always mention on these threads, in USA whether at private or public courses everyone is ALWAYS keeping a stroke play score. Even if they are playing by themselves. Even if they are playing a two-ball match. Virtually every USA golfer is going to walk off the course after every round prepared to answer the question "What did you shoot". The number they have in mind may be arrant bullshit with all sort of mulligans, rolling the ball, picked up putts and so forth. But real or fake they are thinking a medal-play number when they walk off 18, every time.

[Mark Pearce]

Sean,

That's my point.  Tony's suggestion that there is a real 2 ball culture in the UK is, I think, a fallacy.  Made in a thread about access, it's even more so since the vast majority of those 2 ball clubs you named allow 4 ball play by visitors, perhaps at specified times.  At Muirfield, for instance, there's no 4 ball play at all except on the only two days of the week when visitor play is allowed, when just about everybody plays in 4 balls.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Do folks think there is a big difference between US public and private play formats?  In my experience, when playing public courses I see a lot more people with cards in their hands compared to private clubs.  

I don't think there is a strong 2ball ethic in the UK.  Most would consider it old fashioned and it is.  In my experience, the clubs that definitely preferred 2ball

Prestwick
Worly
Deal
Brancaster
Sandwich
Huntercombe
Rye
Littlestone
Hunstanton
Muirfield

There are a few more, but one gets the idea, very few 2ballers out there!  That said, looking at the list above, one could do a lot worse for a golf holiday.  

Ciao

Pulborough, Royal Ashdown Forest to name two more from this year... There are quite a few really... and most traditional clubs have two-ball only time slots... I know we do, Royal Dornoch do...

Incidentally - I'm not a fan of 4-ball at all.... Gets awful tedious waiting for shots to be played and looking for other people's balls....

[Tony_Muldoon]

Sean,

That's my point.  Tony's suggestion that there is a real 2 ball culture in the UK is, I think, a fallacy.  Made in a thread about access, it's even more so since the vast majority of those 2 ball clubs you named allow 4 ball play by visitors, perhaps at specified times.  At Muirfield, for instance, there's no 4 ball play at all except on the only two days of the week when visitor play is allowed, when just about everybody plays in 4 balls.

Mark I think you've been reading to many Mucci's posts.  The point I was making was that there was a history of 2 ball matches at British clubs that was never replicated in the states.  I added  it survives in traditional clubs but not in the vast majority.  Others are happily backing this up and for you not to be able to name 10 clubs in GB&I where it is ‘favoured’ even today, defies belief.   Yes you can play 4 ball at some clubs but not at the weekend and usually only a couple of days a week when visitors are ‘welcomed’. But then you knew that didn’t you? Why aren’t those  ‘traditional’ clubs in your eyes?

As I always mention on these threads, in USA whether at private or public courses everyone is ALWAYS keeping a stroke play score. Even if they are playing by themselves. Even if they are playing a two-ball match. Virtually every USA golfer is going to walk off the course after every round prepared to answer the question "What did you shoot". The number they have in mind may be arrant bullshit with all sort of mulligans, rolling the ball, picked up putts and so forth. But real or fake they are thinking a medal-play number when they walk off 18, every time.

Thank you Brent.  That's the Medal play mentality and you're stuck with it as long as you have to make every round count for your handicap.


In the traditional 2 ball clubs over here a "significant" no of your games will be foursomes.  I've even played foursomes stableford - can't enter the card on that basis.


I just think it odd that golf in the US, where Golf was undoubtedly for a long time seen as more toney than in the UK,  they adopted a model played here by the working men and not the nobs and then we copied it in the vast majority of clubs. Perhaps this isn't the tread for this point but I did start by saying "Another difference..."


I’d wager it also thrives at, Westward Ho, Hoylake, Troon, Swinley, Woking(?), Felixstow Ferry .

How about Elie?

[Martin Toal]

There are a few 2 ball courses, but mostly it is a 3 or 4 ball culture in the UK and Ireland. No 5 balls, thankfully.

In almost 30 years of playing golf in the UK and I, I have never ever played foursomes or greensomes.

The more helpful part of the culture is that it is almost all walking, sometimes with push or electric trolleys but rarely ride on buggies.

[Daryl David]

Most commonly for me has been a 4 point scotch game that consists of two man teams with points for low ball, low total, birdie and proxy, with points doubling if you get all 4.

Apologies for the sidetrack,but could you explain what a proxy is?

Closest to the hole in regulation. I assume "proxy" is short for proximity.  Oh, and getting all four is usually called the umbrella.

[Mark Pearce]

Tony,

I clearly haven't learned from Pat Mucci nearly as well as you have!

You guys at RCP are very proud of being a 2 ball club, aren't you?  I could, I think, easily name 10 clubs, and could maybe even think of 15 if I really tried that "favour" 2 ball play.  How many golf courses are there in the UK?  In the context of this thread, however, your post was misleading.  2 ball play really is not significant enough in the UK to be a major ditinguishing feature when comparing UK and US cultures.  In particular this thread was about access and, as I think even you are admitting, most 2 ball clubs relax that rules for visitors.  
There's plenty of foursomes at Elie, by the way, but medals are played in 3 balls and nearly all casual play is in 4 balls.

[Andrew Buck]

Since this tread is evolving.  

How are handicaps determined in GB&I?  I personally do think most US golfers are too beholding to the GHIN, however it isn't very hard to pick up and take your most likely score when out of a hole, as prescribed by the US system.

We definitely have more fascination in the number, especially if the number is good for us.  I'm not sure where it comes from, but I wouldn't dream of picking up a putt a *meaningless* 5 foot putt for 67 on the final hole, but would sweep the same putt for 75 if it was meaningless.  I've noticed this same dynamic with players of all calibers, and a part of it has to come from having to answer "what did you shoot" in the clubhouse after most rounds. 

[Andrew Buck]

Most commonly for me has been a 4 point scotch game that consists of two man teams with points for low ball, low total, birdie and proxy, with points doubling if you get all 4.

Apologies for the sidetrack,but could you explain what a proxy is?

Closest to the hole in regulation. I assume "proxy" is short for proximity.  Oh, and getting all four is usually called the umbrella.

Yep.  It's often just referred to as an umbrella game. 

[Daryl David]

Most commonly for me has been a 4 point scotch game that consists of two man teams with points for low ball, low total, birdie and proxy, with points doubling if you get all 4.

Apologies for the sidetrack,but could you explain what a proxy is?

Closest to the hole in regulation. I assume "proxy" is short for proximity.  Oh, and getting all four is usually called the umbrella.

Yep.  It's often just referred to as an umbrella game. 

At my club it's called Peppers. I have no clue why.

[Mark Pearce]

Andrew,

The biggest difference is that, with CONGU, once a player has a handicap only competition rounds are reported.  No-one will even think about entering a casual round, there is no requirement to do so and, indeed, it can be a bit of a pain if you do want to.  Accordingly there's no need to keep a score at all in match play and most players will only have a vague idea of their score at the end of the round.

[Andrew Buck]

Andrew,

The biggest difference is that, with CONGU, once a player has a handicap only competition rounds are reported.  No-one will even think about entering a casual round, there is no requirement to do so and, indeed, it can be a bit of a pain if you do want to.  Accordingly there's no need to keep a score at all in match play and most players will only have a vague idea of their score at the end of the round.

So if people almost never play competitive rounds, but play weekly matches, they may take years to move their handicap?

Also, what type of competitive rounds do most players play?  I would guess 60% of our membership doesn't play a competitive medal round most years, and another 30% would only have competitive medal round in the club championship. 

[Martin Toal]

Most half serious players in the UK and I are conditioned to consider a handicap important and play at least enough rounds in competition to maintain it. I don't think we have the same volume of regular players who don't have a membership or handicap as in the US.

Most clubs have a weekend medal or tournament at least once a month, along with a weekday one monthly, plus extra events for Captain's Day, Club Champs and various club special events, and the seniors usually have their own events on top. Also, many have 'roll ups' which are semi-causal comps where you just turn up and get paired with whoever is available. Some clubs have tournaments every weekend, sometimes both days, so there is pretty good opportunity to play tournament rounds. Away events at other clubs can also be eligible. I know players who have played 30 or 40 competition rounds this summer. I managed 8.  

You can't enter a casual round after the fact, although you can post scores for handicap under a system known as supplementary scores, but these must be recorded in advance at the pro shop, to avoid people cherrypicking based on the score.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Most half serious players in the UK and I are conditioned to consider a handicap important and play at least enough rounds in competition to maintain it. I don't think we have the same volume of regular players who don't have a membership or handicap as in the US.

Most clubs have a weekend medal or tournament at least once a month, along with a weekday one monthly, plus extra events for Captain's Day, Club Champs and various club special events, and the seniors usually have their own events on top. Also, many have 'roll ups' which are semi-causal comps where you just turn up and get paired with whoever is available. Some clubs have tournaments every weekend, sometimes both days, so there is pretty good opportunity to play tournament rounds. Away events at other clubs can also be eligible. I know players who have played 30 or 40 competition rounds this summer. I managed 8.  

You can't enter a casual round after the fact, although you can post scores for handicap under a system known as supplementary scores, but these must be recorded in advance at the pro shop, to avoid people cherrypicking based on the score.

Plus every stroke is counted and every putt is holed and the card has to be signed by a fellow club member.

I struggle to play more than 5 or 6 events each year, about 10% of my total rounds.

[Andrew Buck]

Most half serious players in the UK and I are conditioned to consider a handicap important and play at least enough rounds in competition to maintain it. I don't think we have the same volume of regular players who don't have a membership or handicap as in the US.

Most clubs have a weekend medal or tournament at least once a month, along with a weekday one monthly, plus extra events for Captain's Day, Club Champs and various club special events, and the seniors usually have their own events on top. Also, many have 'roll ups' which are semi-causal comps where you just turn up and get paired with whoever is available. Some clubs have tournaments every weekend, sometimes both days, so there is pretty good opportunity to play tournament rounds. Away events at other clubs can also be eligible. I know players who have played 30 or 40 competition rounds this summer. I managed 8.  

You can't enter a casual round after the fact, although you can post scores for handicap under a system known as supplementary scores, but these must be recorded in advance at the pro shop, to avoid people cherrypicking based on the score.

Plus every stroke is counted and every putt is holed and the card has to be signed by a fellow club member.

I struggle to play more than 5 or 6 events each year, about 10% of my total rounds.

Tony,

It sounds like you guys play more medal play on that side of the pond.  

In reality, you probably just have a much higher percentage of serious golfers, which enables this system to work.  There are certainly guys at our club that play twice a week for 6 months of the year, so they log 50 rounds but don't play a single medal round.  There are club events on a similar regular basis, but other than the club championship, none are medal.  

I would think your system does a far better job promoting honesty, and doing away with both vanity and sandbagging handicaps.  Our system, if you remove the dishonesty, probably does a better job in assigning strokes for matches.

[Brent Hutto]

I would think your system does a far better job promoting honesty, and doing away with both vanity and sandbagging handicaps.  Our system, if you remove the dishonesty, probably does a better job in assigning strokes for matches.

That's a bit like saying "If you remove everyone breaking the speed limit, our Interstates have fairly slow traffic". The whole USGA handicapping approach is to start with a patently bogus basis of "Every Stroke In Every Round Counts Toward Every Handicap" and then try to obfuscate the results by subjecting the scores to a ridiculously complex set of adjustments, exceptions, workarounds and fudge factors.

As a working statistician I'll tell you that a naïve, simple formula applied to valid data gets better results than a four-page algorithm applies to garbage data. And the data entered this coming Saturday in the GHIN computers all over the country will be mostly garbage.

[Andrew Buck]

I would think your system does a far better job promoting honesty, and doing away with both vanity and sandbagging handicaps.  Our system, if you remove the dishonesty, probably does a better job in assigning strokes for matches.

That's a bit like saying "If you remove everyone breaking the speed limit, our Interstates have fairly slow traffic". The whole USGA handicapping approach is to start with a patently bogus basis of "Every Stroke In Every Round Counts Toward Every Handicap" and then try to obfuscate the results by subjecting the scores to a ridiculously complex set of adjustments, exceptions, workarounds and fudge factors.

As a working statistician I'll tell you that a naïve, simple formula applied to valid data gets better results than a four-page algorithm applies to garbage data. And the data entered this coming Saturday in the GHIN computers all over the country will be mostly garbage.

It would certainly get better results on how many shots someone should give to someone playing a medal round in competition (assuming we could get golfers to admit themselves into at least 5 - 6 a year).  

I think the number of people who cheat the system (or grossly misuse it as a result of ignorance) is pretty low, and as a result if you regularly play matches within a group the team or player that plays the best wins nearly every time.  Unfortunately, the number of players that cheat the system is large handicapped competition will almost always yield a couple players that skew the competitive balance.  

[Brent Hutto]

Remember the scene at the beginning of The Blues Brothers where Elwood says "I didn't LIE to you. It was just...you know...BULLSHIT". That's what I'm talking about with the USGA handicap system. Some proportion of cheaters will flat-out LIE to any system you make. But the system we're stuck with ensures that the vast majority of rounds have BULLSHIT involved in the scores.

Whether it's 5-foot gimme putts between friends or mulligans or rolling the ball in the fairway or all that other stuff that golfers can't live without there is some amount of fantasy involved in most score-keeping. And it's a varying amount of fantasy, that's the problem. So yeah, if the only time you use your handicap is for assigning strokes in your same fourball game with the same guys and the same "Two off the first tee, roll them in your own fairway, root rule, leaf rule and pick up if you don't make bogey" set of b.s. "rules" then typing all that into the computer will let your foursome have a fairly matched game. But a handicap from one of those four guys is no way, no how, not remotely comparable to a handicap from some guy that plays every round like it's the US Open.

The system in the UK means all rounds for everyone are akin to the "every round like it's the US Open" guy.

[JMEvensky]

Brent,I'm guessing the USGA has never asked you to go on tour explaining the GHIN system .

[Martin Toal]

On the contentious subject of US vs UK handicaps, I have always thought that the USD handicaps were a point or two lower than the equivalent UK one. That is based on playing with a variety of players in the US some of whom may have had vanity handicaps, as well as chatting to a few UK guys I know who played college golf in the US.

I think a lot of it is to do with the course ratings which seem to be higher than I would expect for an equivalent course over here.

I have also seen players in the US take mulligans, improve their lies and all that stuff, then at the end of the round say the card will help their handicap.

[Andrew Buck]

On the contentious subject of US vs UK handicaps, I have always thought that the USD handicaps were a point or two lower than the equivalent UK one. That is based on playing with a variety of players in the US some of whom may have had vanity handicaps, as well as chatting to a few UK guys I know who played college golf in the US.

I think a lot of it is to do with the course ratings which seem to be higher than I would expect for an equivalent course over here.

I have also seen players in the US take mulligans, improve their lies and all that stuff, then at the end of the round say the card will help their handicap.

Is the UK system designed to measure potential, or absolute?  Between adjustments, and only using 10 out of 20 scores the US system is designed to be lower than "average".  I truly think this makes sense for assigning strokes in matchplay, but I understand Brent's objection to the "garbage in".