The USGA HAndicap Manual and its appendices  contains a lot of stats on how often a player with an accurate handicap plays at or below his handicap.  My recollection is that it is about once every five rounds and that an average score for a mid handicapper is about three strokes worse than his handicap.  There is also a table that shows the odds of bettering your handicap by various margins. Once you get past four or five shots the odds get very high pretty fast as I recall.  All of which demonstrates that the 20 who shows up at every event and shoots 85 doesn't have a valid handicap or should be at the tables in Las Vegas.

I concur.

BUT... I'm not at all saying it's the SAME 20 shooting 85 gross every time... it just does seem that there's at least one who does this in every large-field event.  Of course it's just a matter of numbers - there are typically a lot more 20s than single digits, at least in the net events I've seen - but still, it does remain a lot easier for a 20 to shoot 85 than a 4 to shoot 69.  I'm guessing the USGA odds would agree with this... I haven't looked.

Garland:

I believe 5 times in my entire 35 year golfing life; exactly once in competition.

And there are a lot more of you then there are of me, Garland.

TH

Quote from: Tom Huckaby on January 24, 2007, 11:13:36 AM

Garland:

I believe 5 times in my entire 35 year golfing life; exactly once in competition.

And there are a lot more of you then there are of me, Garland.

TH

Huck,

You've heard of risk/reward. You need to take more risk to get reward!  

I find your above assertion hard to believe. There are plenty of courses where the course rating is 69 for a par 70. All you would have to do is play to your handicap potential to shot 69 there.

Garland,
I believe Tom; I've had a single-digit handicap for a decade or so now, ranging as low as 4.0 (currently around 7 and rising FAST!)  and play a course with a rating of 68.3 over a hundred times a year.  I've broken par (70) twice there, and twice elsewhere.  Ever.  

Quote from: Garland Bayley on January 24, 2007, 11:54:51 AM

Quote from: Tom Huckaby on January 24, 2007, 11:13:36 AM

Garland:

I believe 5 times in my entire 35 year golfing life; exactly once in competition.

And there are a lot more of you then there are of me, Garland.

TH

Huck,

You've heard of risk/reward. You need to take more risk to get reward!  

I find your above assertion hard to believe. There are plenty of courses where the course rating is 69 for a par 70. All you would have to do is play to your handicap potential to shot 69 there.

Garland,
I believe Tom; I've had a single-digit handicap for a decade or so now, ranging as low as 4.0 (currently around 7 and rising FAST!)  and play a course with a rating of 68.3 over a hundred times a year.  I've broken par (70) twice there, and twice elsewhere.  Ever.  

My logic was flawed. I deleted my post. Need more caffeine!

 

I've been gone for about 14 hours, but the USGA has not changed their position on handicaps due to our stirring diatribes.

For those of you who continue to eschewthe position tha low handicappers  have an advantage in better ball of partners   play I've got some land to sell at the coast here in Jersey, which is sure to be beachfront soon. Al Gore told me so!!! lol

As to the Tiger match, a four handicap isn't getting four shots, he's getting eleven. A ten (10) is getting seventeen (17 shots)

We played  a six man game last Monday on a nice day and the low gross better ball was 66, a really good score. The other two teams shot 71 & 72 respectfully. The highest handicap in the group was 7, who played with a two.

The net for these chaps, if they had played against Tiger and Phil with the (7) getting fourteen shots and the (3) getting nine was 54. Yep , sixteen under!!!!!!!!

Player A (2 handicap) shot 72 with four birdies and a double
                 not unusual for him
Player b   (7  "   )  shot 75  with two birdies  (he played great
                   he's erratic but talented, very long

 they ham and egged, but still made a net bogey on a tough par three

their mythical match with Tigger and Phill shows how the plentitude of shots skew the outcome

they had fifteen net birdies nd two eagles, playing of course off the plus seven h-cap

I'm telling you that you can't give 9 & 14 shots match play  better ball to two guys with some basic skills..even if you are Phil and the Golden Child

In forty years of watching playing and listening about golf I have never heard of two low handicappers winning a better ball of partners event   .......net score......  NEVER  !!!!!!

I'll wager no one else can either , think hard, seeee!



ps. match play is worse yet

Quote from: archie_struthers on January 24, 2007, 01:28:08 PM

In forty years of watching playing and listening about golf I have never heard of two low handicappers winning a better ball of partners event   .......net score......  NEVER  !!!!!!

That's why they always have a gross division!

Unfortunately, Pete, they don't!  A lot of club stroke play tournaments are flighted, then played at scratch, with gross and net prizes, but most match play tournaments are played off 80% of handicaps unflighted.

Particular point of contention with me, because my partner for the last few years has been a dear friend who also has won the last two club championships, played college golf, and even played an exhibition match with Byron Nelson back around 1968 or so.  He can PLAY, even at 56!  We've made it to the semis three years in a row, then go out to MUCH higher handicaps each time.  He says he's done with those competitions, and I think I am, too.  Why spend good money to get pencil-whipped to death?

This year, he was two over and I was four over when we got closed out on 16 by a 10 and a 16.  So he has to post a 72 and I post a 74, and we lose.  The greater irony was that neither of our opponents bettered his handicap; we were giving them massive #'s of strokes and they ham and egged really well.  The killer was a stretch where the 16 handicap goes par, par, birdie, par, bogey, with strokes on 4 of the 5 holes.

Turns out a stretch like that helps his team a LOT more than the several LOIBIP's hurt them...

George:

What separates groups into different flights if not the handicap system?

Outside of that, I don't think it's really INTENDED to work with 4's playing against 20's.  That's just too much of a spread.  I think the intent really is to allow for a few strokes here and there, not a stroke a hole or close to it.

In any case, why do you find a 20 handicap shooting 85 gross so hard to believe?  I see it so often, I think it really is just a luck/avoiding distaster thing for a guy like this, and it can happen without disbelieving the guy's handicap.  Then you factor in the plain quantity advantage of the 20s (that is, any given tournament there are just so many more of them) and to me it's not hard to believe one achieve this damn near every event.

TH

George:

What separates groups into different flights if not the handicap system?

Outside of that, I don't think it's really INTENDED to work with 4's playing against 20's.  That's just too much of a spread.  I think the intent really is to allow for a few strokes here and there, not a stroke a hole or close to it.

In any case, why do you find a 20 handicap shooting 85 gross so hard to believe?  I see it so often, I think it really is just a luck/avoiding distaster thing for a guy like this, and it can happen without disbelieving the guy's handicap.  Then you factor in the plain quantity advantage of the 20s (that is, any given tournament there are just so many more of them) and to me it's not hard to believe one achieve this damn near every event.

TH

You are correct on all points. I'm simply saying you use the handicaps to get people among their peers, then let nature take its course from there.

As for the 20 shooting 85, it's the competition part that I don't buy. I just don't see a 20 handicap shooting what is bordering on a career best during competition. If someone did, I would automatically doubt his handicap, that's all I'm saying.

Maybe I'm just biased against 20 handicappers, being one and all.

 

Sean:

I don't believe the intent of the USGA is to have every golfer obtain an official handicap, although I'm sure they'd love it if they could.  The intent of the system seems to me to be to allow for the reality of US life, in that monthly or more regular medals are not the norm.  Thus they devised a system that strives to allow all rounds to count.  It seems to me people here like it that way...

Thus I don't see that its obvious that the best way to do handicaps is by using competitive scores.  It is there, where monthly medals are the norm.  It just wouldn't work here, where that is not close to being true.

CONGU works there, ours works here.  Note we're talking about only the negatives today... sandbagging and the like... to me that's a small subset of the overall system.  I do think our handicap system works very well for our culture for the vast majority of purposes and instances.

TH

I can see a 20 shooting 85. I can't see him doing it in competition.

The only exception I can really see is if it's a course he's played a ton of times. I know I'm a good 10 shots better on my home course, just due to familiarity and added confidence. I might get lucky there. But I sincerely doubt it would happen during competition.

George, I'm telling you, it happens all the time - it's pretty much expected that one guy will do this in any given large field net event.

And it's not on home courses.

Why is it so hard to believe?  Remember there are plenty of 20s who play a lot of competitive golf, and thus aren't fazed as much as one who does this infrequently.  Oh I know, competitive golf is a very different thing from regular golf - don't I painfully know that - I just do continue to see this as such a regular event, your doubting it seems strange to me.

Remember, if it's the same guy doing it regularly, that's sandbagging.  If it's one guy out of the 20+ in a 40-man field doing it, that's just him avoiding disaster holes and getting a bit lucky.  Why is it so hard to believe one guy will do this?

TH

I was a 6 in our club championship and shot a 67. What does that say?

That the tourney was shortened due to rain??

 

Joe

Sean:

The USGA system does work very well for classifying American golfers as they play in our culture and allowing people who are relatively close in abilities to have a fair and equal game.

I don't think it's intended to work when so many shots are given.  That is, it CAN work and generally does even so, but the chances for break down on the extremes are a lot greater.

That's why the USGA also advocates adjustment of handicaps on such extremes... that is, using only 90% or whatever... it's all on the USGA site if you care to explore.

Strengths:  it gives US golfers what they want, and generally allows for fair net games.

Weaknesses - peer review policies are great, but getting people to follow them is difficult.  Also we have the breakdowns on the extremes already mentioned.

That's my assessment.  But hell I just play the game.

 

Quote from: Jim Franklin on January 24, 2007, 05:53:06 PM

I was a 6 in our club championship and shot a 67. What does that say?

That the tourney was shortened due to rain??

 

Joe

That a lot of people wanted to kill you?