Bandit or genuine h'cap?

[haplesshacker]

Having now taken the plunge to join a golf club. £60 seems quite good value to me. Anyway, they require 3 scorecards from the more difficult of the two 18 holers to give me a h'cap, which I have duly supplied. However, I use a piece of software to record my scores, and this tells me that my h'cap based on the last 6 months of games is 19 (On various courses). My h'cap (I've calculated as I'm still waiting to hear from the golf club) for the golf club is likely to return as 26.33.

My dilema is that I've just entered an industry golf day at work and they want to know what my h'cap is. What do I tell them?

ps Last year I entered the same tourmanant, and was given a h'cap of 22 by the boss and I finished about 12th of 30 on stableford (scoring 27). (In case that makes any difference to your answer).

All replies welcome.

 

[minty18]

I'm not too good with working out the old handicaps but from what I gather in your last industry golf day you were 6 shots off your handicap therefore had you have played off 28 in your comp you would have shot 36pts which i'm lead to believe is "playing to your handicap".

I would say go in at about 25 mate. If you play well and score 36 pts and win you're not a bandit as you've played to handicap. However if you played off 25 and scored 40pts eyebrows would be raised.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

You should play to your club or official handicap. What I find with most societies is that you start with your official handicap and depending on how regularly your society plays etc they may run their own "society" handicap which will take into account how well you do on these days out.

Always go with the official figure. It is the most reflective of how you play on a regular basis

 

[RGuk]

If your club gives you 26.....then "smile and wave". You HAVE to play off the genuine thing, if they give you more than many scores over many months on many courses, well, in this case it's all going to work in your favour.

Never cut yourself for fun/work days....if you romp home with the prizes, you've got a genuine h'cap to show anyone with sour grapes.

 

[rgs]

As stated play off your official handicap, thats what you joined a club for.

 

[grumpyjock]

at our works outings I call for 28 as that is what hc I have at the club(only 6 cards handed in last year).
They will only give a max of 24 and with 3/4 stableford that works out at 18. So when I score 28 or 30 points they can not complain but I do.
Handed in a card last week and had 4 taken off so now playing 24.

 

[stevelockie]

Got to be your official handicap.

 

[USER1999]

You can always play off a lower handicap, but you can't play off a higher one. I have had this arguement with my society, as they give people shots back for playing badly, in excess of their club h/cap. This is wrong.

If you have an official h/cap, then this is what you should play to, unless the organisers of the day choose to limit you to something different. Don't worry, if you win you will be cut next time.

Also, if you are in the prizes with 28 points, the rest deserve to loose.

 

[pjaz]

Not a club member, so only have my sociey handicap to go off, and even then I tend to elect to play of a lower one (24 to 22) to challenge myself. It worked alright for the latter part of last year where I scored more points on 22 than 24 so it can help if you are playing well.

 

[Toad]

Officially I am off 13.5 but when playing with guys from work or in our annual football outing I go off 10, I usually play much better in bounce games than I do in medals and generally play well below my handicap so its that or get called a bandit by everyone.

 

[Marko77]

If you don't hear back from the club in time go with your lowest merit card submitted (using 19.8 adjustments) and subtract the SSS for the course. That is most likely what your handicap secretary will do to assign the handicap anyway.