7 months in, how do you like the new World Handicap System?

[Pete Lavallee]

The biggest difference is getting less on the course; in the old system an 8.8 would get 8, now they get 7.


I’ve yet to see a differential changed due to course conditions. Your differential is computed when you post and I assume it would change at midnight should the course play easier or harder.


I still am confounded as to why US golfers must post scores for casual rounds? Are UK golfers posting casual rounds?

[Rob Marshall]

Pain in the ass having to check every time you play to see if your handicap changed. I had one round where it changed my score because the course apparently played easy. In my game we had a 67, 68, 69 and 70. They were shot by a +4, 2-scratch, and a 4.

[Lou_Duran]

My index has been like a yo-yo because I play a lot of rounds and the number of rounds which are counted are fewer by two (8 vs 10 over the last 20).  I was in the 4s most of last week, but four rounds in the low 80s jumped me from 4.7 to 5.2 after Friday's round.  After posting my hole-by-hole scores, the system estimated an index of 5.1 which was then adjusted later to 5.2.


It is my understanding that posting casual rounds in the UK is optional.  I seldom play by myself, so not being able to post an unverified round doesn't bother me in practice. I do think it is a silly concession to the ROW, especially since there doesn't appear to be consistent requirements across the board and a cheater will cheat, marker or not.

[JESII]

Love the app..feels like 5 fewer steps to post a score.


Handicap is 3.5 higher in last month...and deservedly so so it’s responsive.

[jeffwarne]

In my experience this year, in tournaments with players on different tees, it allocates far more accurately, leading us to abandon our previous practice of deducting a standard two (or three) shots from players opting for shorter tees.
Under the old system it would often leave handicaps unchanged from a set of tees 700 yards shorter.

[Pete_Pittock]

Based on my ytd +/- bet accounting system I should hate it.
But it has evened out the disparity between courses at my facility, now I am usually around net par on both courses rather than shooting net 67 on the north and net 75 on the south.

[Jim_Coleman]

Pete:  Odd you haven’t seen a course condition adjustment.  I would say my course has adjusted 20% of the time, always with a -1 after PCC, which I assume means the course played 1 stroke easier than anticipated.  The only explanation I can figure is that we removed 400 trees In the off season, making the course easier.

[Jason Thurman]

I like the daily handicap update.


I don't like that I don't see my "trend" handicap anymore. I woke up today under 10 for the first time in a couple years. I knew it was going to happen, but only because I did math yesterday.


The app works great and I like that I can follow the guys I game with most frequently and quickly pull allocations for any set of tees.


I wish I could group different people together in the app - put my Saturday morning game in one bucket, the guys I play matches with into another, the entire roster for the Midwest Mashie into another that can be shared so that we can all quickly pull up allocations before matches start...


But the responses in this thread are all you need to read to know that the course rating adjustment now being baked in represents a major improvement. Even the pro wasn't doing the math before!

[Garland Bayley]

When I first went to download it, it had a user rating under 1. I waited. Checked with our pro on some issues I had with it, and after assurances they were fixed, I downloaded when it had a rating of 1.5. The 1.5 is an accurate assessment of how bad it sucked. It is slowly getting better, but still lacking in quality.

[Jason Thurman]

Garland, your pro probably isn't the guy to fix issues you have with the GHIN app. He probably doesn't understand the purpose of a course rating, let alone know how to code.


How were you posting scores and looking up stroke allocations before, and in what ways is the app worse?

[Jason Thurman]

One more thing to like - I haven't yet found a course that doesn't have a current rating in the app. Previously, when I used the GHIN website to post scores, half the courses I played weren't available in the site's database and I'd have to add the club, tee, rating, and slope manually before posting. Another half of the remainder were in the database, but with a rating and slope that often wasn't even close to matching what was printed on the course's scorecard and reflected in the National Course Rating Database (https://ncrdb.usga.org/). But every course I've played so far has accurate ratings and slopes already in the app's database and ready for me to just punch in my score. In fact, when I just Googled "national course rating database" while typing this message, the site was captioned "You've visited this page many times. Last visited on 10/24/2019." I haven't had to look up a course rating since October.

In fairness, I've played fewer away rounds this year than ever.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland, your pro probably isn't the guy to fix issues you have with the GHIN app. He probably doesn't understand the purpose of a course rating, let alone know how to code.
...

What kind of person would make such aspersions about a PGA pro and his knowledge or lack thereof while knowing nothing about that pro?

Also, who would think knowing "how to code" even pertains?

[Sean_A]

The system starts in November in the UK. It is my understanding that posting friendly scores will be optional. I don't expect many mature British golfers will post non comp scores.

Ciao

[Kyle Harris]

It still hasn't erased the odor of Dean Knuth's attempt of turning all amateur golf into a controlled experiment so... meh.

[Jason Thurman]

Garland, your pro probably isn't the guy to fix issues you have with the GHIN app. He probably doesn't understand the purpose of a course rating, let alone know how to code.
...

What kind of person would make such aspersions about a PGA pro and his knowledge or lack thereof while knowing nothing about that pro?

A jackass, making a joke in response to the post four-before-yours, where our resident pro inadvertently confessed to not properly applying the USGA course rating when handicapping tournaments from different tees.

Also, who would think knowing "how to code" even pertains?

Anyone citing app issues, as they're fixed by coders. At the very least, your complaints need to reach a product manager. Maybe your pro has connections. Again, mostly it was a joke... really at Jeff's expense, but I think he can probably take it.


Regardless, I'm genuinely curious to understand the ways in which you've found the app "lacking in quality." For me personally, compared to any of the options previously available, it's a much faster way to post scores, handicap matches, look up other golfers' handicaps, and adjust for play from different tees and different courses - exactly the stuff I expect a handicapping app to deliver.

[David Ober]

Pete:  Odd you haven’t seen a course condition adjustment.  I would say my course has adjusted 20% of the time, always with a -1 after PCC, which I assume means the course played 1 stroke easier than anticipated.  The only explanation I can figure is that we removed 400 trees In the off season, making the course easier.

I have seen one course adjustment out of 75 rounds. Crazy. And it adjusted it 1 stroke in 25 sustained, 45 gusts. That system needs to be fine tuned, for sure.

[PCCraig]

I don't really know what the difference is. Our Invitational is this weekend...so you would assume they would use most up to date handicaps from the day before? No, they took the handicap from the last revision date (August 1st). So essentially the same exact deal as before?

[Brad Tufts]

I’m a total score and stats guy, and I have no idea how the PCC works.


I’ve played maybe 40something rounds, and only 2 have been adjusted, one -1 on a nice, benign day, and one +3 on a tough, windy tournament day.


There are many other rounds where i guessed it would apply...like two rounds in the early part of the season with mid 50s temps, swirling winds, and crazy-fast greens with lots of tourney scores entered...neither had a PCC adjustment...if it was that hard for a low-marker, wasn’t it impossible for the high-capper?  I suppose that could be the case, but that is tough to fathom given the conditions.


If it was just the math, then wouldn’t you see lots of -0.4s or +0.2s, etc.?


I have seen one reminder to post your scores on time, so maybe that affects things if people drag their heels?

[Garland Bayley]

...
Regardless, I'm genuinely curious to understand the ways in which you've found the app "lacking in quality." For me personally, compared to any of the options previously available, it's a much faster way to post scores, handicap matches, look up other golfers' handicaps, and adjust for play from different tees and different courses - exactly the stuff I expect a handicapping app to deliver.

Before I got the app, friends were reporting lots of bogus results from the app.
When I first downloaded, it couldn't find many courses and related data. That they have made great strides on.
For the longest time the app failed to repaint the screen properly so that the next page you were viewing overlaid the previous page you viewed. I submitted that (and other trivial issues) problem to them through their online feed back.
For a long time, it could not find golfers. It could not find a member of my regular group. It could not find another friend, but could find his wife who of course belongs to the same club. This seems to be recently resolved.
It does not allow you to set reasonable defaults for things like course played and tee played.
It does not give you any information on how to correct incorrect inputs. For that matter, since they are letting you self report, why don't they let you self correct.
The executable is far too large for such limited functionality. Clearly they are interested in paying professional golfers gobs of money, but not so much for their software people.

The Europeans were wise to delay adoption, as they seem to have been smart enough to know that forcing out an app by a set date was operating on a management, and marketing schedule, not on a technology readiness schedule.

[James Reader]

The system starts in November in the UK. It is my understanding that posting friendly scores will be optional. I don't expect many mature British golfers will post non comp scores.

Ciao

And as I understand it you’ll have to declare that you’re going to post your score before you play; no deciding afterwards depending on how you did.

[Jim Hoak]

I like it very much.  It's as advertised,
The PCC adjustment for course conditions happened to me a few times this spring, but none recently.  It's not planned to be an often occurrence.
You get an updated handicap every time you post a score, but often it's unchanged.  When you post a score, it does give you a "trend" even before the score goes in. The score--and any PCC adjustment--happens at midnight that night.
I also like the added features for keeping stats on your game if you so choose.
All in all, a good improvement by the USGA and R&A.  Hope it continues to be tweaked over time.

[Pete Lavallee]

The wife and had hoped to spend a month in Dornoch; we decided to wait until this year so I could stand a decent chance in the Scottish Open Comps. Well, that didn’t work out too well! Has anybody made the trip across the pond this year?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Have not noticed any difference at all.

[A.G._Crockett]

The only differences that I've noticed are all positives.
The daily update of indexes is a good thing.
The ease of determining who gets strokes and how many is FAR better than what we had to do before, and has reduced the carping over the numbers by a lot, IMO.
The software on the app is really powerful; the ability to set up a match before you ever get to the course, or to lookup particular golfers, or to enter a score; it's all much improved over the old app, which I didn't think was bad at all, really.
I've only had one round adjusted by the PCC, and I played all winter thru the cold and wet and wind; 78 rounds this year thru today.  It may be that I misunderstand the PCC adjustment, but if it's January and everybody in NC is shooting higher numbers every day because of cold dense air, lots of wind, and soggy turf, then the PCC wouldn't kick in, would it?  If the conditions are like that pretty much every day, with an adjustment mechanism that is "designed to be conservative" then higher scores are to be expected, aren't they?  The only round that it adjusted my score, downward by a stroke, was a day with winds gusting to 40 mph; I shouldn't have been out there, but of course I was.
Anyway, I don't see a thing about it that I don't like, and a lot that I do.

[Garland Bayley]

... The daily update of indexes is a good thing.
The ease of determining who gets strokes and how many is FAR better than what we had to do before, and has reduced the carping over the numbers by a lot, IMO.
The software on the app is really powerful; the ability to set up a match before you ever get to the course, or to lookup particular golfers, or to enter a score; it's all much improved over the old app, which I didn't think was bad at all, really.
...

They could have done these things years ago with the previous course rating based handicap system. The USGA spends their money on most anything but the average golfer. The fact that it took them this long get their act somewhat together is not something that deserves praise.