My yearly handicap system rant

[archie_struthers]

 


Bingo Matt...but very few golfers golfers can play medal play in competition and thrive....lots of guys can bomb and gouge and make birdies and doubles....but that's the game lots of us play in here in the USA

Same reason to play your club championship at match play every other year, it broadens the spectrum of potential winners exponentially





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[Kalen Braley]

AG,

I have zero issue stipulating you know far more about Handicapping than I do, the Seinfeld bit was only intended as a bit of humor. 

However, once again not an expert in this area but the USGA appears to have an entire section devoted to wrong scores and they certainly imply "cheating" in several spots, even if they may not say the word.  Section 7.1.C seems to stand out.

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/roh/Content/rules/7%201%20Handicap%20Committee.htm

Either way, I believe my original statement stands.  An algorithm is only as good as the data that is input and Data Integrity is certainly a critical step in ensuring such.  If there is zero oversight or QC put in place, the whole thing is questionable at best.  Imagine if they ran the US Open score posting using their own handicapping system methodology! 

[Chris Hughes]

 Said it to Knuth a long time ago , say it today and the changes certainly only made it worse.

Dean is in full agreement with you that the "changes" are no bueno -- he thinks the new "WHS" blows. 

[Wayne_Kozun]

 Said it to Knuth a long time ago , say it today and the changes certainly only made it worse.

Dean is in full agreement with you that the "changes" are no bueno -- he thinks the new "WHS" blows.

But do we know how many people are affected by the extreme cases?  For me there was almost no change, when the system changed I think my index only changed by about 0.1.  I am typically around an 8-11 index.  The new system is a little quicker to lower your cap when you shoot a bunch of low rounds, and a bit slower to reflect bad rounds.  But it isn't that big of a deal.

[Chris Hughes]

Playing with my daily or weekly group we all want a fair match...at least my group does. So a trending handicap that reflects your scores with some sort of recency is the best way to insure the playing field is level.

Don't know if this would work for you, but if that's all you want, couldn't you give strokes based on your prior game's results and  give strokes based on each player's performance in the preceding game? If you had a bad round yesterday you'd get strokes today. If you played better today, you'd get fewer strokes tomorrow (or possibly give strokes). You can't have more "recency" than that. When I played in a regular weekly group, not all the players had official handicaps so we usually assigned strokes on the first tee based on how we typically played and adjusted them each week based on how we played the preceding week.


edited to fix typos

I'm aware of a game at one of the better clubs in central Florida that operates in this exact manner.  It's stableford/quota oriented and the target for each player is adjusted daily.  It requires a lot of work from the game-runner but he has devised a very effective & fair system.

If any of you have ever played in the Bay Hill Shootout that's a good format that includes players of a variety of abilities, but doesn't use any shots.  It too requires a game-runner who makes the teams daily and knows the ability of all the players who sign up.

[Rob Marshall]

Archie’s original rant, of course, is something entirely different.  He’s playing poorly, but not fast enough and/or often enough to get his index to where he thinks it SHOULD be.

I can't imagine a system that would achieve that without serious side effects.  If the number went up faster with bad play, then it would also do it going down.


Re. your comment re. sandbagging being rare, I think it depends on the locale. When I lived in Kansas,  the KGA sponsored a year-long Kansas Cup that practically institutionized it.


Furthermore,  a skins game that makes a 16 handicap give up 8 shots against scratch players isn't aimed at being fair.


I know it's been done that way for a long time in a lot of clubs, but that doesn't make it right.

I don’t understand how a 16 handicap gives up 8 shots to a scratch player.  Assuming that they are playing 18 holes from the same tees, and assuming the “scratch” player is a zero, I don’t get the math.




If a particular club has been doing something like this for a “long time”, that’s a club management issue, isn’t it?  As is “institutionalized” sandbagging.

Our member member was last weekend. There were 3 net 1’s on the par 3’s in the first round skins game. How does a scratch player compete with that? Answer is they can’t.

[archie_struthers]

 


Rob , just another example that makes me crazy LOL


When you play a skin game at full handicap it's no longer a game its a benefit >


nuff said

[Rob Marshall]

Rob , just another example that makes me crazy LOL


When you play a skin game at full handicap it's no longer a game its a benefit >


nuff said

Exactly, my normal game no longer plays a skins game. We couldn’t find anyway to make everyone happy.

[A.G._Crockett]

AG,

I have zero issue stipulating you know far more about Handicapping than I do, the Seinfeld bit was only intended as a bit of humor. 

However, once again not an expert in this area but the USGA appears to have an entire section devoted to wrong scores and they certainly imply "cheating" in several spots, even if they may not say the word.  Section 7.1.C seems to stand out.

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/roh/Content/rules/7%201%20Handicap%20Committee.htm

Either way, I believe my original statement stands.  An algorithm is only as good as the data that is input and Data Integrity is certainly a critical step in ensuring such.  If there is zero oversight or QC put in place, the whole thing is questionable at best.  Imagine if they ran the US Open score posting using their own handicapping system methodology! 

It is not news that there are golfers that cheat.  It is also not a valid criticism of the WHS, since cheating predated the WHS, and will still be part of whatever comes next.


Your statement “If there is zero oversight or QC put in place” is important, since that is, and always has been, an integral part of the handicap system. If “oversight and QC” are absent, then the system hasn’t been fully implemented, and now you not only have unfettered cheaters, but incompetent management.


Neither of which is the fault of the WHS.

[A.G._Crockett]

Rob , just another example that makes me crazy LOL


When you play a skin game at full handicap it's no longer a game its a benefit >


nuff said

Exactly, my normal game no longer plays a skins game. We couldn’t find anyway to make everyone happy.

Perhaps one of you can cite the section of the USGA handicapping manual or Rules of Golf that covers Skins games, either gross or net.  I’ve only been able to find stroke play and match play.




C’mon, guys.  That’s your idea of a criticism of the WHS?  Get real.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

The UK essentially had comp only cards until the WHS took over. Quality data was sacrificed for inclusiveness as per the US model. The kicker is a huge percentage of US golfers don’t have real handicaps. The inclusive model in the US has never worked.

Go figure - an anti-US bit from @Sean_A. 


The U.S. and the UK have different golf cultures, so the comp-only UK method wouldn't really work here. It's about that simple, really.

This entire WHS debacle stemmed from wildly varied playing abilities among elite amateurs qualifying for events. It had next to nothing to do with the average Joe golfer. The result is slower golf in the UK because loads more people are holing out for score instead of treating non comps as casual golf. It’s sad to see UK golf being Americanised.

As others have pointed out, blame your own R&A, not the U.S./USGA (as you love to do).

Perhaps one of you can cite the section of the USGA handicapping manual or Rules of Golf that covers Skins games, either gross or net.  I’ve only been able to find stroke play and match play.

AG, you should know better than to come at the grumpy people with reason.


I've played in skins games as a + index. In the last one, I birdied a par three, as did a 12 index, and so while I squashed his gross birdie, he won the net birdie as I had to add a stroke. Playing net and gross skins seems to work, in my experience, but whatever - that's just anecdata, but… It's often so little money I don't really worry about it much.


------


@Chris Hughes, you can keep posting, but you've shown yourself to be intellectually dishonest, to duck questions, to misrepresent what's been said, etc. I said I was done (not a half dozen times, so add that to the list), and I am. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

[Ken Moum]

I don’t understand how a 16 handicap gives up 8 shots to a scratch player.  Assuming that they are playing 18 holes from the same tees, and assuming the “scratch” player is a zero, I don’t get the math.

Archie's skins game includes handicaps from +4 to 16 and they play at 50% handicap.  So a 16 is giving up 8 shots to play against a 0 gives up nothing.  This has been a thing "good" players have done for decades because they think {(wrongly) that the system favors bad golfers.


I play in a regular game that is often skins, and we play at full handicap, off the lowest one.  We don't have any really low handicappers, 7 or 8, some days I'll be low at 10-11.


We solve some of the problem with the erratic player getting "too many" strokes by requiring validation with the net par on the following hole.  We also have a rule that a scratch birdie beats a net birdie, and scratch birdies don't have to be validated.


With handicaps that spread from high single digits to 30+ there's no real pattern to who wins the $$.


FWIW, we play Stableford pretty often, too, which appeases the steady players because they can usually rack up a good number of points.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

We solve some of the problem with the erratic player getting "too many" strokes by requiring validation with the net par on the following hole.  We also have a rule that a scratch birdie beats a net birdie, and scratch birdies don't have to be validated.

That's another creative way to handle it, especially if you just want to do only net skins.

[Rob Marshall]

Rob , just another example that makes me crazy LOL


When you play a skin game at full handicap it's no longer a game its a benefit >


nuff said

Exactly, my normal game no longer plays a skins game. We couldn’t find anyway to make everyone happy.

Perhaps one of you can cite the section of the USGA handicapping manual or Rules of Golf that covers Skins games, either gross or net.  I’ve only been able to find stroke play and match play.




C’mon, guys.  That’s your idea of a criticism of the WHS?  Get real.

What? When did I ever say the whs covered skins games? Get real?

[A.G._Crockett]

Rob , just another example that makes me crazy LOL


When you play a skin game at full handicap it's no longer a game its a benefit >


nuff said

Exactly, my normal game no longer plays a skins game. We couldn’t find anyway to make everyone happy.

Perhaps one of you can cite the section of the USGA handicapping manual or Rules of Golf that covers Skins games, either gross or net.  I’ve only been able to find stroke play and match play.




C’mon, guys.  That’s your idea of a criticism of the WHS?  Get real.

What? When did I ever say the whs covered skins games? Get real?

Oops; I mistook complaining about combining skins games and handicaps for a comment on the WHS, since that is the topic at hand.

[Chris Hughes]

@Chris Hughes, you can keep posting, but you've shown yourself to be intellectually dishonest, to duck questions, to misrepresent what's been said, etc. I said I was done (not a half dozen times, so add that to the list), and I am. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

What is it that you want to know?

How many "members" are there in that "eClub" of yours?

[Chris Hughes]

UPDATE on soft/hard-cap "anti-abuse" system, a few data points:

> 71 members of the club caught up in the soft/hard-cap "anti-abuse" seine net.  There are about 250 active* golfers, so 28% are branded with the scarlet "S".

> Daryl David says 50% of his group has been caught in the seine net:   "I would say 50% of my golf group was under the oppression of the soft cap sometime this winter season. That’s just weird. None of them are “cheaters”."

> Out of curiosity I looked up every Chris Hughes (and derivation thereof) in GHIN, there were 58.  After cleaning up the data to only include active* golfers there were 21 -- of the 21 there were 7 caught in the "anti-abuse" seine net = 33%.

> Furthermore, a couple of us contacted the USGA to see if they had any published info on soft/hard-cap.  A nice young lady replied promptly and said:  "In 2023, overall there was a 12-13% incident rate for soft caps and 0.71% incident rate for hard caps."

So, in 2023, at any point in time 12.5-13.5% of ALL handicap holders were caught in the soft/hard-cap "anti-abuse" seine net. 

I'd be surprised if much more than 40% of all golfers with a handicap are truly active*, but to be conservative let's call it 50%......implies 25-27% of ALL active* golfers are caught up in the soft/hard-cap "anti abuse" seine net -- this is wrong!      I think I will organize a protest...



 *Active defined by:
1.  Posted 20 or more scores since January of 2023.
or
2.  Posted 15 or more scores since January of 2024.

[Rob Marshall]

3 strokes doesn’t seem like a big increase over a year.

[Chris Hughes]

Is the soft cap an increase of 3 shots?

Yes.

If the handicap moves 3-strokes within 12-months the soft-cap kicks in -- then each successive score only has 50% of the impact it would have otherwise.

If the handicap moves 5-shots within 12-months the hard-cap kicks -- then the handicap cannot move higher until the previous 12-months index-low moves higher.

Completely bogus "anti-abuse" system!!  (FTR, doesn't affect me, currently  )


https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/world-handicap-system/topics/soft-cap-hard-cap.html

[Dan Gallaway]

I could vent this in a couple of current threads:


I'm in a real struggle with my game these days.  For example, shot a 89 followed by 103 in successive days on the same course (Pronghorn).  Battled my way around Chambers Bay (my home course) the other day and got away with some awful misses, lagged a handful of 40+ foot putts to tap in range, and made a few 10 footers for a 78.  Because it was more than 6 strokes below my handicap, my handicap was dropped an additional stroke.


If handicap is supposed to be reflective of what I am capable of, then fine.  The irony is that my round would have been a 77, but my dead pure putt struck the inner liner of the hole and bounced out.  So what is reflective of my ability: the holed out birdie putt or the tap in par?  To be honest, I was shocked as heck that the putt went in the hole, even if for only a fraction of a second.

[archie_struthers]

 


In our 50% skins game the +4 has four holes that he gives a shot to the field...that's how we do it , if they refuse to play so be it!


We always had more griping when we attempted years ago to play it at 100 then  80% .  50% has worked for us.


I liked the "trend" they used to post on GHIN...many of us used it in our individual game within the game. I just don't think it's good to have a guy shoot over 80 for fifteen rounds in a row and his or her handicap stays at 6....I do understand that it reflects the best you can play more than the average


We have 24 guys playing tomorrow in our "game" , should be a blast

[Tim Martin]

In our 50% skins game the +4 has four holes that he gives a shot to the field...that's how we do it , if they refuse to play so be it!


We always had more griping when we attempted years ago to play it at 100 then  80% .  50% has worked for us.


I liked the "trend" they used to post on GHIN...many of us used it in our individual game within the game. I just don't think it's good to have a guy shoot over 80 for fifteen rounds in a row and his or her handicap stays at 6....I do understand that it reflects the best you can play more than the average


We have 24 guys playing tomorrow in our "game" , should be a blast

Archie-You have to stop playing with criminals.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Completely bogus "anti-abuse" system!!  (FTR, doesn't affect me)