You know what I agree that it is possible for you to have a lower index from farther back. It just becomes less likely the worse your handicap is. At 22 it is downright impossible unless you are trying to keep your handicap up.
There's not a sane golfer on the planet that adheres to the premise that your handicap goes down as you move back and play a longer course.
Here is the question I sent to the USGA handicapping section, and also to Dr. Dean Knuth, the creator of the USGA handicapping system.
"Is it possible for a player to establish a handicap on a forward teeing
ground, and then after moving back for several rounds have the index go
down assuming that his skills have not changed? If so, what kind of
factors would cause it to go down?"
Garland
Dr. Knuth was the first to answer. Here is what he wrote.
"Hi Garland,
Yes, that could happen. Or, vice versa, too.
The reason is that the Course Rating and Slope Rating systems account for one model of golfer, "Average Andy". "Wild Willie" or "Steady Eddie" have different game types and unfortunately, without another dimension to the system identifying their game, what you mentioned below can happen.
Best regards,
Dean Knuth"
So every sane golfer knows that the handicap index can go down when "you move back and play a longer course". Which makes one wonder about the sanity of someone asserting the opposite.
Clearly there is a vast majority of "Steady Eddie"s on this site, so their experience is if you move forward, your index goes down. However, there are a few "Wild Willie"s on this site such as Peter Pallota, George Pazin, and myself for whom moving back would lower our index.
If you have read my explanations on this thread, you have seen that I started by explaining there is an average ("Average Andy") and variations on either side of that. Furthermore, I explained the kinds of variations you see from "Wild Willie" that would make his handicap index lower from back tees.
For making the correct assertions of fact and explanations as to why my assertions are true, I have been labelled excessively argumentative. IMO, excessively argumentative people would be those that continue to argue the wrong side of an argument when they have been presented correct statements and correct explanations for the correctness of the statements.
QED