Handicap manipulation - how to address

[rulefan]

Re A & B
Who do you believe will win more competitions and who do you believe should?
Is B's lack of practice by choice or due to circumstances beyond his control?

What exactly are you proposing be done to WHS to change anything?

 

[rosecott]

Maybe but you must concede the amount has rocketed.

For me, no. the level is quite manageable and not noticeably increasing.

 

[rosecott]

I thought you might have read the flow of messages up to the one you threw back at me. If you had you would have followed it easily enough.

Have you failed to comprehend that you are in a very small minority/

 

[clubchamp98]

For me, no. the level is quite manageable and not noticeably increasing.

Fair enough you can only comment on what your experiences are.

But to many on here just dismissing players concerns as hearsay and misunderstanding.

 

[Thintowin]

Re A & B
Who do you believe will win more competitions and who do you believe should?
Is B's lack of practice by choice or due to circumstances beyond his control?

What exactly are you proposing be done to WHS to change anything?

I'm assuming you're asking me those questions.

I think a player who knows he's played well should have a decent chance to win. I think that was the case but I don't think that's the case under WHS.
A might shoot 79 and feel he's played well but he's got very little chance if someone similar to B has an ok day. The Bs are people who have been lower and still have that capability. There are many of them, at least in my golfing world.

My solution would be to use the previous, UHS, algorithm for HI. Players like B did not see their handicaps float upwards quickly during a year or two of poorish scores. I also believe this approach would go a long way to stopping most of the manipulation we now see. The reward for a few below average scores was a lot less.

I have no issues with the rest of WHS, i.e slope, allowances etc.

 

[Thintowin]

Have you failed to comprehend that you are in a very small minority/

If true, that would be convenient. Can you show me the stats?

 

[WorldHandicapSystem]

If true, that would be convenient. Can you show me the stats?

Can you?

 

[bobmac]

Have you failed to comprehend that you are in a very small minority/

If true, that would be convenient. Can you show me the stats?

Can you?

The onus is on the person making the claim to prove its true, not Thintowin to prove it's not.

I have a purple dragon in my garage
Prove it
Prove I haven't

 

[bobmac]

So on those normal days, people now play to their h/cap but on those rare days, 5,6 even 7 under h/cap would not be a surprise, especially with higher h/caps?

Interesting how no-one has attempted to answer my question

 

[KenL]

Improvements (???) that might lessen the effects of handicap manipulation attempts....

1. Restrict GP card submissions to 1 per week.
2. Change the weighting that a GP score has in a players record...maybe by limiting the number of GP scores that are part of the "average of the best 8 calculation" to 2
3. Calculate the handicap index using the best 5 from last 20 (my own analysis shows that this has only a marginal effect on the playing handicap...especially at courses with relatively low slope ratings)...this removes any spurious high scores from the best 8....though again my experience is that a players best 8 scores are usually within a reasonably tight range.
4. Low index based on last 18 months scores...reduces the effect of a player who showed good form a couple of years ago but who's "form" has declined (naturally or deliberately)
5. soft cap at 2 over low index, hard cap at 4 over low index...reduces slightly the effect of golfers throwing in lots in a short space of time to get their handicap up
6. graduated allowance for singles strokeplay events, based on field size AND handicap distribution of entrants (absolutely nigh on impossible to determine until you know who has played but may be a better way than a simple blanket % based on field size....maybe at any given club the same participants play each week so over a period of time it may be possible to determine a "best fit" allowance).
7. lower the "exceptional" score thresholds to say 5 and 8.

I realize that 3 and 4 immediately breaks the ethos of having a handicapping system that is more reflective of a players form and may limit those who are perhaps declining rapidly due to ill health or injury. But it seems that most WHS antagonists would rather see these particular golfers hobbled, if it meant that the "manipulators" were restricted in their efforts to increase their index. For the antagonists, the "demonstrated ability", that one golden round a player shot a year or more ago, is far more reflective of a players ability than the last thirty rounds form.

I don't believe, in isolation, any of the individual suggestions above will provide a wholesale fix to the generally perceived problems...it is simply not possible to come up with a perfect system...but some of them could be used as part of a toolkit in order to fine tune the system. Knee jerk reactions are not needed, but there must be enough scoring data out there that would allow the system to be tweaked. The frequency of GP card submissions is an obvious one...the mobile phone app (not the WHS itself) has made it far easier to submit scores and is obviously an area that can be abused by those looking to manipulate the system.

Most of the rest of the suggestions are ways of limiting the effect of many cards being submitted in a short space of time...which seems to be an area of concern....you either fix the issue "at source" by restricting the volume, or you lessen the effect by putting in to place methods of reducing the effect these scores have.

I like the best 5 out of the last 20 suggestion.

 

[KenL]

Does every GP card get checked?

Surely it is by the person verifying the score assuming it was submitted on an app.

 

[WorldHandicapSystem]

The onus is on the person making the claim to prove its true, not Thintowin to prove it's not.

I have a purple dragon in my garage
Prove it
Prove I haven't

@Thintowin has made a number of claims and has been asked multiple time to back them up with evidence. As yet, none has been provided.

 

[bobmac]

@Thintowin has made a number of claims and has been asked multiple time to back them up with evidence. As yet, none has been provided.

Two wrongs don't make a right.
If someone makes a specific claim, they should be prepared to back it up

 

[wjemather]

Interesting how no-one has attempted to answer my question

So on those normal days, people now play to their h/cap but on those rare days, 5,6 even 7 under h/cap would not be a surprise, especially with higher h/caps?

For several reasons, such scores may be more common than they were under the old system, but are still pretty rare outside of rapid improvers. It is no surprise to see 7 under (43 points) at least once every few comps at ours, or in a large field (especially one with lots of higher handicappers)- but then that was also true under the old system.

Reasons include the inclusion of Slope (higher handicappers generally have higher Course/Playing Handicaps than they did), and the inclusion of CR-Par in the Course/Playing Handicaps (which affords more strokes on more difficult courses) - of course this also means lower Sloped and easier courses will be seeing less of these scores than they did.

 

[hambugerpete]

But some folk draw attention to themselves. (We hope!)

It has made it easier, no denying that. Need clubs to be on top of it. Some are, some are not. Always needed that, but even more so with folk keying scores themselves in an open environment

Id like the think the platform itself can spot the handicap cheats . If I put a load of dodgy cards in and shoot up by 6 shots , surely an alarm is triggered somewhere ?

 

[hambugerpete]

The onus is on the person making the claim to prove its true, not Thintowin to prove it's not.

I have a purple dragon in my garage
Prove it
Prove I haven't

Straight out of the farage handbook

 

[DickInShorts]

Id like the think the platform itself can spot the handicap cheats . If I put a load of dodgy cards in and shoot up by 6 shots , surely an alarm is triggered somewhere ?

With a soft cap of 3 and a hard cap of 5 you would certainly need a lot of time to pass to go up by 6 shots!

 

[bobmac]

Straight out of the farage handbook

I don't understand

 

[bobmac]

For several reasons, such scores may be more common than they were under the old system, but are still pretty rare outside of rapid improvers. It is no surprise to see 7 under (43 points) at least once every few comps at ours, or in a large field (especially one with lots of higher handicappers)- but then that was also true under the old system.

So there are more people with h/caps that are too high.

Reasons include the inclusion of Slope (higher handicappers generally have higher Course/Playing Handicaps than they did), and the inclusion of CR-Par in the Course/Playing Handicaps (which affords more strokes on more difficult courses) - of course this also means lower Sloped and easier courses will be seeing less of these scores than they did.

Wasn't that addressed by the SSS and CSS

 

[Swango1980]

Comment No. 1000. Can I have a prize?