CONGU Club Handicaps

[duncan mackie]

I’m at a loss. What is the universal (dream) system implementation? What is horrifying about a club choosing to include Club Handicap holders in some competitions? Or about introducing a competition or two for that group only?

1. It's the aspirational international single handicap system that the various national associations have been working towards for many years now. The recent changes to CONGU and the current course rating exercise are all steps on the journey. What's horrifying is that if the components of CONGU can't even agree about the implementation of a simple necessary element (call it cat 5) it's difficult to see how the path to any wider changes would be smooth.

2. You have lost me beyond your first sentence. I've reread my post and can't see where you got any suggestion in that, or any other post I've ever made, that supports either aspect in that context.

 

[Colin L]

Thanks, Duncan. That’s clearer now. You are deploring a failure of CONGU to move forward on an international system, viewing the club Handicap in the wider context of that failure and, if I’m right, even seeing it as evidence of the unlikelihood of making progress. I am more narrowly looking simply at what we’ve been given, the Club Handicap, and seeing the positives in it at club level. I don’t have the involvement or knowledge to view it differently. In your wider context, it might be felt that the Club Handicap isn’t worth having because it doesn’t meet the aspirations you have explained. Out of that context, taken solely on what it sets out to be - a measure for club golf - the Club Handicap offers something positive that wasn’t available before which I see as of benefit to a number of our members. You have not said otherwise and I was wrongly taking your comments on the wider failures as you see them and applying them to the particular context of the Club Handicap.

 

[duncan mackie]

Thanks, Duncan. That’s clearer now. Where you are deploring a failure of CONGU to move forward on an international system and viewing the club Handicap in the wider context of that failure, I am more narrowly looking simply at what we’ve been given, the Club Handicap, and seeing the positives in it at club level. In your wider context, it might be felt that the Club Handicap isn’t worth having because it doesn’t meet the aspirations you have explained. Out of that context, taken solely on what it sets out to be - a measure for club golf - the Club Handicap offers something positive that wasn’t available before which I see as of benefit to a number of our members. You have not said otherwise!

Well, strictly, I have said that it was available before - committees could always use the working clause for Junior golfer if they decided to. It just been rebadged and remarketed! We have done for many years combined with an academy approach and special tees.

The aspirations it fails to meet in its current guise are that it retains a demarcation (not a CONGU handicap) with the inevitable implications ( not a real golfer etc but individuals will make their own inferences) and, to cap it all, they (the ruling bodies) mess it up for everyone else (an existing 28 who should be a 36 decides to retain his CONGU 28 for away comp eligibility - senior opens aren't about winning - but figures in the CSS calculation for everyone).

It's because I feel so strongly about proper inclusion that I'm concerned!

 

[rulefan]

A player cannot have a CONGU handicap and a CONGU Club handicap at the same time. Unless his away club (illegally?) does not register him.


All other major handicapping systems round the world have 54 as the upper limit.
The significance of 'cat 5' players on other players' handicap adjustments in USGA type systems is nil as there is no CSS or CBA adjustment.
In CONGU type (EGA) type systems they are ignored in the CSS and CBA calculations.