A 15-handicapper who played to a 3 at some point during his life is a totally different golfer than a 15-handicapper who has never been better than 14. In stroke play, maybe it all evens out. But in match play the guy who has shot around par a hundred times but now shoots in the 80's (call him Colonel Has-Been) will beat Captain Never-Was about 9 times out of 10.
Separate question. Can anyone give me a brief precis of the "Bogey" scoring that you guys often refer to? Is the "Bogey" for a course more or less one stroke per hole higher than "Par" or is it more complicated than that? I really have no idea what you're describing, it seems to date from before I took up the game 20 years ago.
Brent
Just think of the old bogey score as the scratch score for the day. Its not quite the same thing because bogey referred to individual holes and scratch to the course. In any case, it was very common for the scratch score to be higher than 75. In the 1920s the scratch scores for courses all over the country came under review in order to bring some sort of codification to handicaps because with the growth in the game a proper system was needed. I know Pennard's scratch score tumbled from 79 to 77 in 1924 then to 76 a year or two later. That high scratch score hung around in the form of Bogey Score for holes when the scratch score continued to come down at all courses. I think by WWII bogey score was starting to rapidly disappear. There were some hold outs such as Swinley etc well into the 90s, I am sure into the 00s even, but really in name only.
In general, I don't think there's anything wrong with letting the wily Colonel Bogey-type players make their 5's for 4, if they are smart enough not to take the bait and consistent enough to avoid losing strokes in the process. But some of those holes ought to tempt them to go for it, and others ought to stick a hazard right in their wheelhouse and make them play around it.Tom, yes I agree, but do courses really test the wily 15 capper willing to sit on his strokes or is that possible without essentially creating a monster design?
Ulrich
Once a handicap gets above 20ish its largely guess work and at 40ish its a waste of time to calculate. There isn't a system on earth that can accurately calculate that sort of number for a golf match. I don't buy for a moment that we can build courses to satisfy a 40 capper and a 4 capper.
Ciao