Can anyon e explain please?

[heronsghyll]

Can anyone please explain the CONGU rules relating to All Comer competitions please? I am at a loss....... Let me explain.

At my club last weekend there was an A/C competition, in other words ladies, juniors etc could all play in it against each other.

I posted a reasonable score then discovered that because of the CONGU rules being applied, all men had to 1. accept a 2 shot cut in handicap regardless of ability and 2. the SS was also reduced by a shoit - from 70 to 69. So ineffect we were penalised 3 shots to make it "even" for women to play against the men.

Now the ladies have their own tees and card - which changes a lot of the holes from par 4 to par 5's anyway.

So I have 2 questions:

1. why do all men regardless of handicap level have to take a 2 shot cut? I play off 8 so my handicap was cut to 6 (a 25%) reduction. However, a 24 handicap player also took a 2 shot cut - which equates to only a 1:12th cut. How is this fair?

2. why do we have to take a cut at all. The ladies do not play from out tee boxes, nor do they play from our card. The ladies SS is 73 (the mens is 70) so they have a 3 shot advantage already.

Do not misunderstand me, I am not moaning about ladies playing, I just do not understand the reason for the unfair treatment of the men in this competition and the fact that some men (low handicappers) are treated unfairly compared with other men (high handicapers).

I am interested to hear from anyone who can make sense of it all.

Many thanks

 

[Cernunnos]

Heronsghyll... You are not the only one puddled by all that. It does seem unfair, as everyone has a handicap & the ladies still tee off on the Reds where they usually do, so already have an advantage before they start & before getting given extra shots on top...

In my opinion they should either get the 2 shots & tee off from the mens medal tees, or don't get the shots & stay on the red tees, not both. Infact In my thinking playing from the reds is potentially worth a lot more than 2 shots over a round. At my last club there was a good preportion of the ladies who could outdrive a lot of the seniors & some of the standard members.

I remember playing a summer knockout against a lady member at my last club & her tee shots were going almost every bit as far as mine once you allow for differences in the tee off points & I was hitting the ball a long way that year with driver.. Meaning se would be yards infront of me off the tee after the first shot & it takes a lot of reeling in to score on a hole when someons been given an advantage like that. I had to pull out all the stops & dig deep that day.

I really am of the opinion that these days at least amoungst the amatuer ranks of most clubs that most ladies need no dispensation & should already be playing with the men off Yellows for daly play & Whites for Medal & Match. Only dispensation being given for senior men & ladies and allowing use of forward tees with no aditional handicap allowences. As it is ladies handicaps can goup to 36, where mens only go up to 28, that can make a big difference before a shot is even taken to some of the higher handicap men.

 

[USER1999]

But most ladies are not as powerful as the men, and so even if they drive level with your drive, you may have a 7i as a next shot, they may have a 5w. This will make it harder for them.

Sorry, off topic.

I have no idea why you were penalised, but that is one of the reasons I would give for not playing in mixed comps. I have never understood the concept of Bisques either. Why should ladies get extra shots in matchplay, over and above their h/caps?

 

[Cernunnos]

murph I beg to differ. As I said in summer knockouts I was playing a lady who could hit it every single yard as far as I could & I hit it further than most members at the club where I used to be. This meant she would be 100yards or so further down parr4 & parr5 holes.

My mother is not a powerfull hitter, but she can still hit the same yardage distance as my dad & you wouldn't believe his clubhead speed for an old guy. And yet is all for naught. This means she'll be having that all important shorter shot into every green. Club selections are rarely all that different for most the lady golfers I know.

Only lady golfer I know who needs to take significantly more club for every shot is my other half. She's very diminutive with very little upper body strength at all, yet she still managed to hit her driver 220 before runout was added on one hole last year. After the runnout, she had a very short shot into the green. The reason she managed it.... I'd told her think one swing thought... say "Lorena Ochoa". Timing was the simple key for her to get some of that distance she'd been lacking.

Its a lesson most ladies seem to learn early on & one consiquence is their knowledge of fairways, where the gents are generally all over the place like the three jolly sneaksmen/huntsmen in the folksong, as they blast at everything that moves & are still in the rough.

Long gone are the days that ladies couldn't hit it as far as the men. Technology has a lot to do with it, as for some reason the ladies have been able to & taken full advantage of the science involved. We men are our own worst enemies at times, as we still are trying in general to hitting hell out of equipment we don't need to. Or shouldn't need to.

 

[USER1999]

Most of the ladies at my club are 50 and above (in terms of years not h/caps). Most do not hit the ball any where near as far as most of the men. There are a few off 10ish who hit a mean ball, but for a lot of them, even off the ladies tees, the par 3s are out of reach (except the 9th, at 120, and you would be amazed at the number of woods played here).

 

[Herbie]

I can.....its called interfering meddlers.

I have never understood or seen any logic in some of the h/c cutting for men unless everyone goes off the same tee!

Ladies play the course giving them distance and sometimes strokes advantage withing the course design which by itself gives the required compensation in my view.

Then Ladies h/caps are relevant to the course they play as are mens, so unless everyone is off the same tee, each players h/c, course par and yardage takes the differences into account.

Why all this messing about with h/c or scoring in some comps is beyond me?


An example....I played with a Lady one day, just a friendly, but during the game we chatted and part of conversation was mixed comps,which led to the issue you raise. As we came onto a long par four this lady pointed out that she thought ladies should get an extra shot here or men should have h/c docked. This would have meant that on a hole where this lady got about 50yds advantage on the tee to begin with, she also got a stroke advantage because it was a par 5 for ladies not par 4 and got another stroke due to her h/c. I got nothing and would have to play a long par 4 from scratch, so effectively she had 50yds and equivalent of 2 strokes advantage. That is before any extra stroke she believed women deserved on this hole.

Laughable you may think, but these are the same kind of ladies that bring about all this sillyness in my view along with the men who support it . Now where is my helmet?

 

[Herbie]

I forgot to mention that the lady concerned took 5 gross on this hole

 

[heronsghyll]

Well nice to get some feedback - but I am not necessarily whinging about ladies. I am more concerned over the unfairness in adjustments.

In the comp I played in - all the men regardless of handicap level had to take a 2 shot cut? I play off 8 so my handicap was cut to 6 (a 25%) reduction. However, a 24 handicap player also took the same 2 shot cut - which equates to only a 1:12th cut - an 8% cut. How is this fair? Surely a sliding scale of cut by category would be a more fair process.

Assuming adjustments HAVE to be made, at least make them fair.

To finish up though, my personal thoughts are the same as friend of mine who today stated --- that in trying to do this, they are actually opening up a can of rather unnecessary worms. The two sets of people are essentially playing two different courses, so how can you have one winner? Far simpler to have everyone play together by all means, but run it as two competitions over the separate courses being played.

The danger is - people (men) will boycot or not bother in future to enter A/C events, goes completely against what CONGU and others were hoping to achieve by integrating things.

 

[Herbie]

Well nice to get some feedback - but I am not necessarily whinging about ladies. I am more concerned over the unfairness in adjustments.

In the comp I played in - all the men regardless of handicap level had to take a 2 shot cut? I play off 8 so my handicap was cut to 6 (a 25%) reduction. However, a 24 handicap player also took the same 2 shot cut - which equates to only a 1:12th cut - an 8% cut. How is this fair? Surely a sliding scale of cut by category would be a more fair process.

Assuming adjustments HAVE to be made, at least make them fair.

To finish up though, my personal thoughts are the same as friend of mine who today stated --- that in trying to do this, they are actually opening up a can of rather unnecessary worms. The two sets of people are essentially playing two different courses, so how can you have one winner? Far simpler to have everyone play together by all means, but run it as two competitions over the separate courses being played.

The danger is - people (men) will boycot or not bother in future to enter A/C events, goes completely against what CONGU and others were hoping to achieve by integrating things.

I tend to agree with you and I too have no axe to grind with ladies, its more the silliness of the adjustmenst you sometimes come across, but those adjustments are generated by the will of its members, both men and women.

 

[wackygolfer]

Hi Heron

To answer your questions there is a very in depth explaination on the Congu website. If you go to the Mixed Golf link it actually explains why they do it.

I would prefer to play to one universal handicap, but I do know that at the moment if I played a man of the same handicap as mine he would beat me hands down because our handicaps are assessed on two completely different courses, the pars are different, the lengths are different and the placement of the tees can sometimes make a huge difference.

I understand the SSS difference but I do not know why they cut you 2 shots. That was a very strange idea.

 

[heronsghyll]

HNJ,

Sorry not sure what you mean by "....but those adjustments are generated by the will of its members, both men and women".

No man at my club has EVER asked a) for mixed competitions or b) handicap adjustments of the kind being implemented.

In fact, in speaking with my Captain and numerous committee members and the Secretary - none of them can tell me why this has become mandatory. The CONGU seem to be a law unto themselves which our club has to follow (apparantly).

 

[heronsghyll]

Re: Can anyone explain please?

Hey Wacky!!! (what a great name),

Thanks for the information - I have already re-searched and read everything I can on the Congu website. I ended up even more confused.

You say "...I would prefer to play to one universal handicap, but I do know that at the moment if I played a man of the same handicap as mine he would beat me hands down because our handicaps are assessed on two completely different courses, the pars are different, the lengths are different and the placement of the tees can sometimes make a huge difference".

I completely agree.

My issue is - why not allow ladies to play from thier tees, against their card either Medal or Stableford. They then get a true result of how they have played aginst their own course.

Let the men play their game from their tees against their card either medal mor stableford. The men then get a true result of how they have played aginst their own course.

Why do the above AND reduce the standard scratch for men by a shot AND cut every man 2 shots in the competition regardless of their ability. This cannot be right - but is what happened and I was informed will happen in future with all A/C comps.

Believe me I have no issue playing with, behind or around ladies - just with the system being implemented. I sincerely believe this will be couter productive to co-hesive competions between men, ladies and Juniors in the future, certainly at my club.

 

[viscount17]

Re: Can anyone explain please?

OK, I've just read the item on the CONGU website and despite their best endeavours to produce gobbledygook (and as a Technical Author I've seen, and written, a lot!) I actually managed to make some sense of it.

Just to make you happy, they got it wrong. The men shouldn't have had strokes deducted, the ladies should have had them added.

Next, the men's and ladies SSS are not equivalents, each is based on the score of a scratch golfer of the appropriate sex - not of an androgyne.

It is also NOT the case that in mixed comps it will always be the men who 'give up' shots. it is the lower SSS that will give shots to the higher. (this is also the case for Stableford, though there CONGU have made a much better job of producing garbage.)

This you may like.
"Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy." (Michael Shanks, former chairman to the National Consumer Council)

 

[Herbie]

HNJ,

Sorry not sure what you mean by "....but those adjustments are generated by the will of its members, both men and women".

No man at my club has EVER asked a) for mixed competitions or b) handicap adjustments of the kind being implemented.

In fact, in speaking with my Captain and numerous committee members and the Secretary - none of them can tell me why this has become mandatory. The CONGU seem to be a law unto themselves which our club has to follow (apparantly).

I was speaking about unusual local adjustments you can sometimes come across at some clubs purely generated by demands of members, sorry I wasnt clearer. I get carried away with this sort of thing sometimes because most of it is utter b***s. CONGU I sometimes think are an organisation manned by muppets of golf sometimes.

 

[SammmeBee]

Have no idea what an All Corner competition is but the only forms of competition you need to worry about for handicapping purposes are Strokeplay, Stableford and Par (Bogey)....

On the basis your competition was a Strokepplay then FOR HANDICAP PURPOSES you must play off of your correct handicap and a CSS calculated for Men and a separate one for women and the normal processes applied...FOR COMPETITION PURPOSES (ie who wins) the Committee can really do what they like....if you've played from a shortened course, and it has been rated by the county then the reduction in SSS is correct...

I think the suggested method though is to allow 'courtesy strokes' for the women based on the difference in SSS from the tees used - ie men SSS 72 - women SSS 70 then the woman get 2 stokes added to their handicap but only for the purposes of the competition....

It would have been much easier if they had just made it so that the competition could have been 'non-qualifying' really...