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

[Jim Hoak]

Don’t want to be seen saying anything nice about the USGA, huh, Garland?
A lot of the time that you see inaction or strange action by the USGA is because they are trying to do something in coordination with the R&A, who may approach things from a different history and strategy.  I know that with handicaps it took months of tough negotiations and compromising to reach the present conclusion.
Certainly the USGA doesn’t always get everything right, but in this case I’m willing to give them some praise and say, good job.

[jeffwarne]

We've had three events this competition delayed season
a 98 player member-guest (tee times)
a 88 player member-member
and a ladies member-guest


Haven't had one problem or even a comment, so I'd say the world handicap system is a smashing success.


As far as the joke being on me, I thought he was referring to Garland's pro.(that was how I read it)
Sorry for not being offended?
But to be fair, I have no idea of "the purpose of a course rating" nor care to.(never got to the world handicap system seminars, having spent much of the winter fretting about and attending caddie/independant contractor seminars and the consequences of recent Long Island caddie lawsuits-alas, the pandemic kind've made both issues secondary.)
i do know how to properly apply a handicap, and know that the old system would very often convert a certain index to the same handicap or one shot different whether they played the member tees at 6300 yards or the whites at 5600, which is why I did what many pros do, and deduct two or even three shots from the player moving up 700 yards.
It's good to be Commissioner, but now the World handicap system seems to be more appropriate nad accurately adjust for different tees in events.


That said, it all cracks me up when 98% of the world can't count(or has "the caddie keep score"), plays preferred lies, drops laterally with only one shot, plays gimmes, hits mulligans etc. It's all incredibly arbitrary anyway-but, I will say the world handicap sytem has gone smoother than expected.


I don't know how to code either   (whatever that is)
and haven't rang up a sale on a point of sale system since 1991 when I left Long Cove-my assistants find a lot of sticky notes

[Garland Bayley]

Jim,

Providing a handicap app that is effective and easy to use based on Dean Knuth's system would have nothing to do with the R&A. It would be simply servicing your membership in a meaningful way. Had they done that, Jeff wouldn't be posting he estimates a handicap adjustment for players competing from different tees. The players themselves would have been able to determine exactly what the adjustment should be by using their app. The pro shop could have printed a list of the competitors from "Golf Genius" (more appropriately could be named Golf Johnny Come Lately) with all the appropriate handicap adjustments listed for each player for the tees they have chosen to play.

Facebook was on smartphones in 2013. Why couldn't the USGA have a high functioning app on smartphones in 2015?
The USGA had their software available in clubhouses well before Facebook was even founded.

[Garland Bayley]

... It's good to be Commissioner, but now the World handicap system seems to be more appropriate nad accurately adjust for different tees in events. ...

It has nothing to do with the "World handicap system". This was always possible if the USGA had gotten their act together and provided the functionality years ago.

And, I know what coding is and know how to do it.

[A.G._Crockett]

I will stipulate that the changes to the system itself and the app are two different things, though associated if only because they came into operation at the same moment.  And I am, generally speaking, no fan of the USGA, fwiw.


That said, I'm not sure that the new system would have functioned properly absent the new app, at least insofar as the allocation of strokes for competitions involving players playing from different tees is concerned.  The ease with which those calculations are now made is VASTLY improved, and the confusion (and often, resentment) that the old method involved is largely gone.  These are good things.

For better or for worse, there are more and more events involving older golfers and mixed sets of tees, including hybrid tees.  I see this as a good thing; I realize not all do.  But the ability to quickly calculate stroke allowances without tedious math problems on the first tee is a great improvement in its own right.  If you are regularly involved in mixed tee competitions, even friendly casual play for a few dollars, you understand what I'm talking about; if you aren't, take my word for it.

[Jason Thurman]

The knowledge Jeff Warne dispenses here is directly responsible for one of my top 15 all-time career highlights as a golfer. I also think it was a discussion of Goat Hill that triggered my #1 all-time GCA Discussion Group highlight, the legendary "Vastidous Horse Shirt" thread. To be clear, I would play in any tournament he handicapped, and would never ask him to show his math.


Garland, if your main complaint is that it took the USGA too long to get decent handicapping software into our hands, I can agree with that. The shittiest looking software I've ever seen is the posting software inside any given clubhouse. At least it usually seemed to work. As mentioned earlier in this thread, I still usually needed two different browser tabs open on a desktop computer to post scores up until October 24th of last year.


And I do like the idea of being able to set a default course and default tee for streamlined posting.


As a guy who works for an app company, I respect that the move to the world handicapping system was an enormous lift that involved a lot more than just a new GHIN app. The fact that the app was more or less ready to roll right as that system was rolled out and that it cleaned up a lot of problems that were real pains in the ass before has been a pleasant surprise for me.


It's hard to separate the world handicapping system from the app that I use to experience it, but A.G. makes good points above. Under the old system, you were either confused about why your handicap didn't change much when you moved up or back a tee or two, or you were confused by trying to do the math to calculate the tee adjustment right before your match teed off. Nobody's confused anymore.

[Garland Bayley]

....
That said, I'm not sure that the new system would have functioned properly absent the new app, at least insofar as the allocation of strokes for competitions involving players playing from different tees is concerned.

 The ease with which those calculations are now made is VASTLY improved, and the confusion (and often, resentment) that the old method involved is largely gone.  These are good things.

Unless the par changes, there is nothing to be done. The course handicap has this built in. You don't even need an app.

For better or for worse, there are more and more events involving older golfers and mixed sets of tees, including hybrid tees.  I see this as a good thing; I realize not all do.  But the ability to quickly calculate stroke allowances without tedious math problems on the first tee is a great improvement in its own right.

Had there been an adequate app for the old system, there would have been no tedious calculation one the first tee. Just get the allocations from the app.

 ...

[Jim Hoak]

Garland and others--The handicap system for players competing while playing different tees is one of the subtlest, but most important, changes in the new handicap system.
Players have always received slightly different handicaps when they were playing from different tees.  But the difference was small--usually only a shot of so.  However, when running a competition with players playing from different tees it was necessary to adjust additionally the handicaps to reflect the different course ratings--which meant as Jeff said adjusting their handicap by a couple of shots or so (whatever the course rating difference was) if they moved up on tees.  But people often didn't properly make this course rating adjustment.
Now it is done within the system.  So no adjustment is necessary.  This was a fairly complex change to the system, but it is one of its best changes.  When all players are off the same tees, the differential in their handicaps stands as it did before, but when different tees are used, the system now makes the proper adjustment without the club needing to do anything.

[Garland Bayley]

Jim,

See my response to A. G.

The advantage to the new system is that most people expect a handicap system to be relative to the commonly known value of par, not the uncommonly known value of course rating. That's it period. All the other so called difficulties could have been eraced with a good app.

E.g., the current app gives you S.O. (shots off lowest handicap) Change the tee for a player, and it gives the adjusted value. This could have been easily provided without changing the basis of the handicap system.

[Kalen Braley]

Garland,

You work in tech, you should know better.  The USGA struggles to keep up with its own primary niche of governing the game, much less getting a technology product right.  Their handicap posting software as Jason mentioned looked like the result of a college freshman software project....from 25 years ago.

My expectations of the curmudgeons in Far Hills remains appropriately placed.

[John Kavanaugh]

For someone who gambles every round the new system has been a Godsend. It has helped curb the moral sandbaggers.

[Garland Bayley]

...
As a guy who works for an app company, I respect that the move to the world handicapping system was an enormous lift that involved a lot more than just a new GHIN app. The fact that the app was more or less ready to roll right as that system was rolled out and that it cleaned up a lot of problems that were real pains in the ass before has been a pleasant surprise for me.
...

The "enormous lift" was the aggregation of course rating databases, aggregation of golfer data databases, the new user interface development, etc.
The change in the handicap calculations is trivial, and could have been done by one person in a day. After all, many noncoders set up the USGA handicap formulas in a spread sheet in a few hours. So don't credit the new WHS calculations for being the source of advantages under the new system.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

You work in tech, you should know better.  The USGA struggles to keep up with its own primary niche of governing the game, much less getting a technology product right.  Their handicap posting software as Jason mentioned looked like the result of a college freshman software project....from 25 years ago.

My expectations of the curmudgeons in Far Hills remains appropriately placed.

Kalen,

Don't confuse political will with technical competence.

The USGA knew what the new ball technology would do to distance regulations before the players and manufacturers did. Their technology people had a proposal to deal with it before it happened. The organization did not have the political will to implement it.

There would be no political barriers to providing improved service to members through improved handicapping software.

There is however the shortsightedness issue. I believe it is a symptom of something called conservative outlook.

As John R. Lewis said, "keep moving forward".

[Garland Bayley]

For someone who gambles every round the new system has been a Godsend. It has helped curb the moral sandbaggers.

What a meaningless statement.
Why do you waste our time.
Take a couple of weeks off, and then quit the site altogether.

[Jason Thurman]

For someone who gambles every round the new system has been a Godsend. It has helped curb the moral sandbaggers.

What a meaningless statement.
Why do you waste our time.
Take a couple of weeks off, and then quit the site altogether.

Dude, he's right. Almost every round I play involves some kind of competition with some level of stakes with some other player or players, and fairly regularly with different players playing multiple tees. The ability to handicap the day's competition with a few taps - whether at 100% of cap vs 80% or 50% or whatever, from any course and any set of tees, with daily updates and a player following feature that help mitigate the asshole who used to wait to post all his recent low scores until after the revision date - and do it all while the first guy in the group tees off as opposed to building a spreadsheet the night before? "Godsend" is a good word.

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm just a golfer who uses the new system every day. I thought moral sandbagger was a kind way to describe gaming the old system.


I think it hilarious that a guy who is killing it on a long golf trip could see his handicap go down from day to day. As the modern golfer goes from private club member to destination resort guest this is a perfect system.

[B.Ross]

1. you can see your handicap history on the website, just not within the app. this should amount to the old trends system.


my additional thoughts:


- don't like 8 of 20 instead of 10 of 20 (though i acknowledge it used to be 96% of your 10 best, which is not too diff than best 8 of 20). i think we should be taking more scores, say 12 of 20 at 100%.
- the app is really easy to use to add players, figure out course handicaps, pick the tees etc.
- i've also noticed that my course handicap at my current index at my most played course/tee combo is now 1 shot higher than it would've been under the old system. i don't know why this is, but i'm guessing it's because the system now uses 8 scores not 10 scores.
- the stats in the app are great, should you choose to do hole by hole scoring with fairway/green/putt inputs as well.


- under the old GHIN system, i had a login for the website which let me see all my scores going back to 2008. for some of those, i did hole by hole scoring inputting as well. those stats are all now gone. the new database only has your scores from 2019 & 2020. i'm sure there are logical database & cost reasons why they couldn't migrate all this data to the new system, but it's a shame. it's even worse that there wasn't like a "GHIN Prime" option where you could've paid them $50 or $100 for all your scores.

[Garland Bayley]

The new system, like the old system, recommends posting scores right after playing. There is no enforcement other than by the handicap chair of the club. I have never seen or heard of that happening. The only enforcement I have seen is handicap adjustment from tournament scores. Now that the apps let players enter their tournament scores that is open to more fraud.

[Garland Bayley]

1. you can see your handicap history on the website, just not within the app. this should amount to the old trends system.

Certainly you can see the last 20 in the app.

my additional thoughts:


- don't like 8 of 20 instead of 10 of 20 (though i acknowledge it used to be 96% of your 10 best, which is not too diff than best 8 of 20). i think we should be taking more scores, say 12 of 20 at 100%.

Surprised there aren't a lot of low handicappers quickly taking issue with this statement already. Your proposal would presumably skew the results in favor of high handicappers according to Dr. Knuth and the USGA.

- the app is really easy to use to add players, figure out course handicaps, pick the tees etc.
- i've also noticed that my course handicap at my current index at my most played course/tee combo is now 1 shot higher than it would've been under the old system. i don't know why this is, but i'm guessing it's because the system now uses 8 scores not 10 scores.

This is because the new system is based off of par, and the old system was based off of course rating. If the tees you play are rated a stroke higher than par, you should expect your handicap to go a stroke higher.

- the stats in the app are great, should you choose to do hole by hole scoring with fairway/green/putt inputs as well.


- under the old GHIN system, i had a login for the website which let me see all my scores going back to 2008. for some of those, i did hole by hole scoring inputting as well. those stats are all now gone. the new database only has your scores from 2019 & 2020. i'm sure there are logical database & cost reasons why they couldn't migrate all this data to the new system, but it's a shame. it's even worse that there wasn't like a "GHIN Prime" option where you could've paid them $50 or $100 for all your scores.

[John Kavanaugh]

The new system, like the old system, recommends posting scores right after playing. There is no enforcement other than by the handicap chair of the club. I have never seen or heard of that happening. The only enforcement I have seen is handicap adjustment from tournament scores. Now that the apps let players enter their tournament scores that is open to more fraud.

Sorry but when you play within the same group and a guy shoots a great score everyone now knows the next day if it was posted. In the old system the only guy who knew on the 16th was the local snitch. No one really liked that guy and his removal from the mix benefits him even more than us.


I always hated revision morning. Even when a guy "forgot" to post a great score it took 15 days to correct the issue.

[Garland Bayley]

The new system, like the old system, recommends posting scores right after playing. There is no enforcement other than by the handicap chair of the club. I have never seen or heard of that happening. The only enforcement I have seen is handicap adjustment from tournament scores. Now that the apps let players enter their tournament scores that is open to more fraud.

Sorry but when you play within the same group and a guy shoots a great score everyone now knows the next day if it was posted. In the old system the only guy who knew on the 16th was the local snitch. No one really liked that guy and his removal from the mix benefits him even more than us.


I always hated revision morning. Even when a guy "forgot" to post a great score it took 15 days to correct the issue.

That of course has nothing to do with the new handicap calculation formulas. So it has nothing to do with the WHS handicap calculation. You are just praising new policies put forth with the new app and posting procedures. This could have been done years ago.

Besides, if you played golf with the guy, why aren't you making sure he posts when the round is done. Before the app, the scorer went into the pro shop and posted the groups scores so scores were timely. Your complaint is that the previous app freed people to sandbag.

Furthermore, the 15 day delay benefited you as often as it benefited your opponents.

[John Kavanaugh]

The new system, like the old system, recommends posting scores right after playing. There is no enforcement other than by the handicap chair of the club. I have never seen or heard of that happening. The only enforcement I have seen is handicap adjustment from tournament scores. Now that the apps let players enter their tournament scores that is open to more fraud.

Sorry but when you play within the same group and a guy shoots a great score everyone now knows the next day if it was posted. In the old system the only guy who knew on the 16th was the local snitch. No one really liked that guy and his removal from the mix benefits him even more than us.


I always hated revision morning. Even when a guy "forgot" to post a great score it took 15 days to correct the issue.

That of course has nothing to do with the new handicap calculation formulas. So it has nothing to do with the WHS handicap calculation. You are just praising new policies put forth with the new app and posting procedures. This could have been done years ago.

Besides, if you played golf with the guy, why aren't you making sure he posts when the round is done. Before the app, the scorer went into the pro shop and posted the groups scores so scores were timely. Your complaint is that the previous app freed people to sandbag.

Furthermore, the 15 day delay benefited you as often as it benefited your opponents.

I took the point of this thread to discuss the new system not the software.


I only play golf with friends. I don't look up a friends skirt to see if they are wearing underwear.


The 15 day delay was easier to manipulate by the high handicap player. I've seen far too many able bodied young men make amazing leaps of improvement with a couple of days practice before a member guest. That's not even cheating. We used to call it secretly shagging.

[Garland Bayley]

The new system, like the old system, recommends posting scores right after playing. There is no enforcement other than by the handicap chair of the club. I have never seen or heard of that happening. The only enforcement I have seen is handicap adjustment from tournament scores. Now that the apps let players enter their tournament scores that is open to more fraud.

Sorry but when you play within the same group and a guy shoots a great score everyone now knows the next day if it was posted. In the old system the only guy who knew on the 16th was the local snitch. No one really liked that guy and his removal from the mix benefits him even more than us.


I always hated revision morning. Even when a guy "forgot" to post a great score it took 15 days to correct the issue.

That of course has nothing to do with the new handicap calculation formulas. So it has nothing to do with the WHS handicap calculation. You are just praising new policies put forth with the new app and posting procedures. This could have been done years ago.

Besides, if you played golf with the guy, why aren't you making sure he posts when the round is done. Before the app, the scorer went into the pro shop and posted the groups scores so scores were timely. Your complaint is that the previous app freed people to sandbag.

Furthermore, the 15 day delay benefited you as often as it benefited your opponents.

I took the point of this thread to discuss the new system not the software.


I only play golf with friends. I don't look up a friends skirt to see if they are wearing underwear.


The 15 day delay was easier to manipulate by the high handicap player. I've seen far too many able bodied young men make amazing leaps of improvement with a couple of days practice before a member guest. That's not even cheating. We used to call it secretly shagging.

If it mentions World Handicap System it is talking about the change in handicapping formula. That is the world wide commonality.

You are praising the USGA implementation that came out this year. The aspects of it that you are praising are not related to the standardization of the formula world wide, but to new policies that you have seen from the USGA for the first time that could have been in place for a much longer time.

[Sean_A]

Wait....so you guys run a single formal event in which players choose their tee? If so, that seems odd because people are not playing the same course.

Ciao

[Mark Pearce]

Wait....so you guys run a single formal event in which players choose their tee? If so, that seems odd because people are not playing the same course.

Ciao

Golf in the USA really is an odd thing.