[Mike_Young]

Isn't a handicap similar to a participation trophy anyway?   

[Scott Warren]

The first pair in yesterday's competition at Deal played in 3 hours including a stop at the hut. The 16 handicapper shot 85 and the 3 handicapper shot 71. So little correlation between pace or ability.


The winner shot 68 -3 off a 4 handicap.

Fairly brazen of you to post in this thread, I'd have thought!

[Adrian_Stiff]

Agreed

[John Kavanaugh]

and took lemon drops.

I did Google it and don't see anything.


What is a "lemon drop"?

A "lemon drop" is a drop while technically not illegal leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I find them taken most commonly along lateral hazards where your opponent estimates his ball crossed much closer to the hole than reality dictates. They are also a popular movie candy whose logo resembles the look on an opponents face when you question his actions. It's not uncommon to label a friend "The Lemon Drop Kid".

[Mike Sweeney]

[size=78%] I find them taken most commonly along lateral hazards where your opponent estimates his ball crossed much closer to the hole than reality dictates. [/size]

So the way to fix this is to have a drone in the air when you are hitting that marks the accurate spot where your ball crossed the hazard.


Time of play vs cheating vs technology.


For the one or two matches that I play per year according to the Rules of Golf at Yale, I am comfortable with my vanity handicap that takes me out of the competition by the sixth hole!!


My skills at the 19th Hole have been compromised in the modern era of drunk driving and calorie counts, so basically the "Glory Days" of golf are over for me! 


Come join me on a hike -  http://peakery.com

[David Davis]

Agree that this is cheating but there are many variation of this which arguably are not cheating so it's really hard to make the "cheating" call.


What about the guy with lots of potential that doesn't play much and just has a great day? Or perhaps the person that played a lot and was very good, even a low single digit hcp'er that goes out and has a solid day.


I think the norm is that a person plays their hcp once in every 10 shots, or so they try to tell us from a competition perspective. They might play in their buffer at other times.


A 4 hcp shooting a 68 at Deal is very questionable unless you had a no wind day I suppose. I've not seen many mid single hcp'ers break 70 in tournaments or even casual rounds but that's just me and I've not yet managed to do that. Perhaps I should visit Deal more often.

[John Kavanaugh]

I rarely don't find myself or team either at or near the top of my flight after the first day of a tournament. I would consider it cheating not to stay out all night drinking. I mean really, who doesn't hate the guy who has to get to bed early to be fresh for a handicapped tournament?

[Daryl David]

[size=78%] I find them taken most commonly along lateral hazards where your opponent estimates his ball crossed much closer to the hole than reality dictates. [/size]

So the way to fix this is to have a drone in the air when you are hitting that marks the accurate spot where your ball crossed the hazard

Didn't work for Tiger using the blimp at TPC Sawgrass. He still took a "lemon drop". 

[John Kavanaugh]

If you look around and find yourself often times playing with a cheater you need to ask yourself if you are a sore loser. You see, no one wants to play with either. You deserve each other.

[Carl Johnson]

The best thing about playing handicaps is that you don't have to.  You can go out and play all your matches, games, etc. with no handicaps.  If there are handicap events that you don't like, you don't have to play them.  In my experience handicap games work best when you're playing regularly with a relatively small group of other players.  That way everyone knows everyone else's ability and sandbagging is very difficult to pull off.  I used to play inter-club team matches and generally enjoyed them, but finally got tired of coming up against sandbaggers, lemon-droppers, and the like.  So I quit playing these matches.  I'm not a sore loser, but after a while it gets tiring and somewhat dispiriting, even though the matches are, in theory, just for fun.

[A.G._Crockett]

1. The most common scenario:
A vanity handicap (which the USGA estimates outnumber the sandbaggers by about 3 to 1) plays poorly in a competition when faced with stroke and distance penalties, putting everything, playing the ball down, etc., and loses to a higher handicap player whose handicap is higher precisely because he obsessively plays by the Rules and counts every stroke he possibly can.  In the grill afterwards, the low capper bitches that he got sandbagged, which he did; BY HIS OWN INDEX!

2. The second most common scenario:
Both players are accurately handicapped, but the very consistent lower handicap player has an "average" day and shoots about 3 shots above his index.  Meanwhile, the higher handicapper has his "once in five rounds" where he shoots below his index.  In the grill afterwards, same conversation.

3. The third most common scenario:
The high handicapper, who we'll say is a 12, wins the match or net division or whatever by shooting a 79, and lower handicap players grouse to each other that "He's a 12, and he broke 80!", not realizing that the course rating from the tees they played was only 67.3, and the the high handicapper simply played to his index that particular day.

4. The fourth most common scenario:
The high handicapper is a sandbagging douche.

1, 2, and 3 all happen a LOT more than 4, but low handicappers believe that it's 4 every single time.  It happens, but it happens a lot less than most believe.

[archie_struthers]

 




Used to have  a bi-annual discussion with the USGA about percentage of handicap used in better ball of partners matches . Always felt 70-80% was the right amount after years of playing this match with my mates.


Dean Knuth and co. Never agreed , if fact gave me a litany of stats when they finally got tired of my haranguing . Never agreed with them . After watching better ball tournaments with handicapped for more years than most ,  still waiting for two scratch golfers to win a one day member guest with shots involved.   Hmnnnnnn

[MClutterbuck]

Agree with Garland.


I add that a good captain should check on the recent score postings of winners. In my club every time you play on a tournament day, you are expected to post a score. We have tournaments every week end and most Wednesdays and Fridays. If you have a high percentage of no postings and win a tournament, the Captain can disqualify. Players know this.


It is more common for people not to post high scores and not play off their handicaps. 

[James Bennett]

M Clutterbuck

That is a USA-world problem, not so in the UK or Australia, or most other parts of the world.
All competition cards go in, whether the round is completed or not.

The Australian problem is that the handicap can reflect very infrequent competition play.  Not many rounds in recent years seem to be needed.  However, a sandbagger is not to me a member who can only play infrequently.
Recently, I got a little peeved at playing against a 36 handicapper in a 4BBB match, but they are the rules.  He was a lovely bloke, and I also accepted that as a member of the club, he is entitled to enter.  I'm sure he would prefer to have more rounds of golf each year with his membership, but he doesn't have time.  His winning match was probably an expensive round.

[Carl Rogers]

12 years back or so while playing off a 5, I got beat 4 & 3 (while being 3 over par after the 15th) by an 11 handicapper who eventually shot a 71.  I have yet to play even a casual round with the inidividual again, but always what wondered how many standard deviations below the handicap that round was.

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm still amazed and grateful that two years ago I won a two man best ball over 45 holes, 80% handicaps, shooting 5 over par. The most honest tournament ever played.


Last year at another member guest at another course we all arrived to find a copy of a news article on our carts. It was about how the winner last year, and participant this, had been disqualified after winning a national tournament for sandbagging. He played, he lost, he resigned.

[Jim Sherma]

For 30 years of public golf I never played in anything other than either a scratch game / tournament or a regular game handicapped by a "commish" who only took into account the scores from past games. No one really cared or believed what anyone's official handicap was. Only when I joined a private club did I start playing net games / tournaments where a person's uncensored handicap matter. Based on experience I have since found the scratch game at my club and other than the scratch club championship and match play tournament pretty much avoid the handicapped stuff. I still play with higher handicaps whose company I like, just not as a competitive event.


The low handicap player will always be at a disadvantage playing in an event against many high handicaps simply because the spread for higher handicaps tend to be greater. I'm rarely more than plus or minus 3 or 4 strokes from my average (handicap ranges from 3.5 to 6.5 over past 5 years). A group of 40+ 12-25 handicaps can easily have a spread of plus or minus 8 or 10+ just due to greater deviation. 


The sour taste is when it's always the same guys delivering the three or four standard deviation event.

[A.G._Crockett]

M Clutterbuck

That is a USA-world problem, not so in the UK or Australia, or most other parts of the world.
All competition cards go in, whether the round is completed or not.

The Australian problem is that the handicap can reflect very infrequent competition play.  Not many rounds in recent years seem to be needed.  However, a sandbagger is not to me a member who can only play infrequently.
Recently, I got a little peeved at playing against a 36 handicapper in a 4BBB match, but they are the rules.  He was a lovely bloke, and I also accepted that as a member of the club, he is entitled to enter.  I'm sure he would prefer to have more rounds of golf each year with his membership, but he doesn't have time.  His winning match was probably an expensive round.

Regretfully, I must agree with this.

Until I moved 18 months ago, I was a member of a golf-only club that had a club-run points/skins game 6 days a week.  The club handled the money, the payouts, the adjustments to quotas, and recording the scores.  Almost all of the players that also played in the various club tournaments played regularly in the points game.

It isn't impossible to sandbag in a regular points game, but essentially nobody does it because it's too expensive.  The net result of all of this was that there was less sandbagging there than any club I've been a member of, and when a high handicapper DID win in a tournament, pretty much everybody knew that the high index was legit and that he'd just caught lightning in a bottle that day.

So, in effect, our club was pretty nearly using the UK system of handicaps based (almost) only on competition.   I have to say that it seems a better way to me, at least in terms of this particular issue. 

[Niall C]

Agree with Garland.


I add that a good captain should check on the recent score postings of winners. In my club every time you play on a tournament day, you are expected to post a score. We have tournaments every week end and most Wednesdays and Fridays. If you have a high percentage of no postings and win a tournament, the Captain can disqualify. Players know this.


It is more common for people not to post high scores and not play off their handicaps.

That's interesting. I think the mindset in the UK is that people are generally delighted to post a good score and get their handicap down, that being a more realistic goal than winning the medal due to number of people entered. The fact that you are playing in a comp with someone else marking your score also helps to keep people honest. Anyone posting a NR when playing well would soon be spotted.


Niall

[Rich Goodale]

I don't give a sh*t about people who keep their handicap up and then tell me that they shot 67, which means 95-28=67.  EVERY golfer should try EVERY time they play to cut their handicap.  What really pisses me off are players who try to keep their handicap low by cheating.  This is mostly done by very low HCP players, and they deserved to be shamed.

[MClutterbuck]

M Clutterbuck

That is a USA-world problem, not so in the UK or Australia, or most other parts of the world.
All competition cards go in, whether the round is completed or not.

The Australian problem is that the handicap can reflect very infrequent competition play.  Not many rounds in recent years seem to be needed.  However, a sandbagger is not to me a member who can only play infrequently.
Recently, I got a little peeved at playing against a 36 handicapper in a 4BBB match, but they are the rules.  He was a lovely bloke, and I also accepted that as a member of the club, he is entitled to enter.  I'm sure he would prefer to have more rounds of golf each year with his membership, but he doesn't have time.  His winning match was probably an expensive round.

James, we try for all competition cards to go in. Cards not going in % do creep up a bit sometimes, and we try to cut back on that by sending out warnings. I do think it is more of a US problem where seldomly people play by the rules competitions.


In Argentina most people that do not hand in their cards is due to a really bad score and not wanting to further delay the course. However, we do check for the opposite. It hardly ever occurs. More people want to boast about their lower handicap than placing well in a medal.

[A.G._Crockett]

Agree with Garland.


I add that a good captain should check on the recent score postings of winners. In my club every time you play on a tournament day, you are expected to post a score. We have tournaments every week end and most Wednesdays and Fridays. If you have a high percentage of no postings and win a tournament, the Captain can disqualify. Players know this.


It is more common for people not to post high scores and not play off their handicaps.

That's interesting. I think the mindset in the UK is that people are generally delighted to post a good score and get their handicap down, that being a more realistic goal than winning the medal due to number of people entered. The fact that you are playing in a comp with someone else marking your score also helps to keep people honest. Anyone posting a NR when playing well would soon be spotted.


Niall

Niall,
I think the mindset of being "generally delighted to post a good score and get their handicap down" is human nature; it's why vanity handicaps outnumber sandbaggers by a LOT.

I think the difference here is that, since casual rounds can be recorded, BOTH types can post scores that contribute to the problem.  The vanity guy is raking putts, not taking stroke and distance, etc., which don't happen in competitions.  Believe me, there is a TON of that in the U.S.; players routinely post scores that a far, far lower than what they could realistically shoot in a competitive round played under the Rules.

That's not to say that sandbagging isn't a problem; there are golfers here who leave out good scores, enter bad scores on away courses that never happened, and so on.  But they are far fewer than the vanity guys because most of us prefer success over failure.

In my experience, a lot of the guys who claim they got sandbagged are actually vanity caps to some extent or another, who lost to a higher handicap who actually has a legit, by the Rules, count every stroke, index.

[Brian Finn]

I have always found this to be a useful reference in this type of discussion.

[JJShanley]

Last year at another member guest at another course we all arrived to find a copy of a news article on our carts. It was about how the winner last year, and participant this, had been disqualified after winning a national tournament for sandbagging. He played, he lost, he resigned.

Did this happen in the middle of the event?

[Keith Grande]

I'm tired of being the one to enforce the rules with my groups.  Many times players take the wrong drop (OB, they drop where they went out, or don't drop no nearer than last passed hazard, etc).   Many players HDCP should be 2-3 strokes worse than what they actually post.

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