Handicaps going down under WHS

[D-S]

Anecdotally we hear that during transition many higher handicappers ended up getting more shots either by indexes going up and/or slope giving them more shots, but at the time it was also rumoured that the lower handicappers went down. This certainly appeared to be the case in my group.
I just checked our clubs list and we now have 10 home players with plus handicaps and 3 off 0.0 as well as 5 away players with plus handicaps. Pre WHS we had a maximum of 2 plus handicappers. I checked our County numbers and we have well over 100 players with plus handicaps.
Is this something that we are seeing across the country? Are scratch events being balloted at much lower than before? We had a national event and the ballot was +1.6 with 4 players above +7.

 

[Backsticks]

Quite consistently, our 0-5 hcs under UHS dropped 1 or 2 shots. Not all instantly, but as they played WHS over the last couple of summers. A good few reached scratch or plus that had never done so before in many years golf.

 

[Imurg]

There was a lot of chatter on here at the point of transition from UHS to WHS.
I know of nothing official but the general consensus was that those in Cat 1 dropped from their UHS handicap by a shot or 2...their 1st WHS index was lower than their old handicap.
Middle ranking players - Cat 2 and the lower Cat 3 - tended to stay the same ie their WHS index was close to their old handicap value.
Over, about,15/16 old handicap value seemed to go up by anything from 1 to 4 or more shots above their old number. But some stayed the same.
Adding in the Slope calculation thus gave the low guys a Course handicap of slightly lower or close to their old number, the mid rangers got a shot or 2 extra and the high guys got even more.
My handicap went from 7.1 to WHS 6.4 which, with our Slope, gave me 8 shots - 1 more
Fragger went from 22.4 to 22.5 giving him 27 shots - 5 more.
CVG went from 16.5 to 15.6 giving him 19 shots - 2 more
Not implying that anything is right or wrong just giving the numbers..

 

[jim8flog]

Generally within our club a lot of the old Cat 1 players went down. I saw this as previously quite a few did not actually play in that many comps so there handicaps were relatively static.

However when the WHS came in was based upon their best 8 and as CAT 1s probably had sufficient good scores for their H.I.s to be based upon those.

I have played with the same group of around 30 players for many years only a couple of us were single figure, we remained pretty static with slight increase since. Most of the guys were mid to late teens and virtually went up slighty. Most of the 20 plus guys went up a quite a bit but funnily the guy with the highest handicap of 39 remained the same.

Most of the guys play 20+ comps a year and there handicaps now are pretty consistent with their ability but as always there are exceptions.

 

[Bratty]

My friend went from 18 to 22.
And then wondered why I refused to play him for money for 18 months! ?
I went from 11 to 13, now down to 10 or 11 again. I must do better and get to single figures next year. 9.4, so should be doable.

 

[nickjdavis]

There was a lot of chatter on here at the point of transition from UHS to WHS.
I know of nothing official but the general consensus was that those in Cat 1 dropped from their UHS handicap by a shot or 2...their 1st WHS index was lower than their old handicap.
Middle ranking players - Cat 2 and the lower Cat 3 - tended to stay the same ie their WHS index was close to their old handicap value.
Over, about,15/16 old handicap value seemed to go up by anything from 1 to 4 or more shots above their old number. But some stayed the same.
Adding in the Slope calculation thus gave the low guys a Course handicap of slightly lower or close to their old number, the mid rangers got a shot or 2 extra and the high guys got even more.
My handicap went from 7.1 to WHS 6.4 which, with our Slope, gave me 8 shots - 1 more
Fragger went from 22.4 to 22.5 giving him 27 shots - 5 more.
CVG went from 16.5 to 15.6 giving him 19 shots - 2 more
Not implying that anything is right or wrong just giving the numbers..

I would say, based on what I observed at my own club that this is a reasonably fair and balanced assessment of what happened at transition.

 

[Springveldt]

There was a lot of chatter on here at the point of transition from UHS to WHS.
I know of nothing official but the general consensus was that those in Cat 1 dropped from their UHS handicap by a shot or 2...their 1st WHS index was lower than their old handicap.
Middle ranking players - Cat 2 and the lower Cat 3 - tended to stay the same ie their WHS index was close to their old handicap value.
Over, about,15/16 old handicap value seemed to go up by anything from 1 to 4 or more shots above their old number. But some stayed the same.
Adding in the Slope calculation thus gave the low guys a Course handicap of slightly lower or close to their old number, the mid rangers got a shot or 2 extra and the high guys got even more.
My handicap went from 7.1 to WHS 6.4 which, with our Slope, gave me 8 shots - 1 more
Fragger went from 22.4 to 22.5 giving him 27 shots - 5 more.
CVG went from 16.5 to 15.6 giving him 19 shots - 2 more
Not implying that anything is right or wrong just giving the numbers..

This is what I saw at my place as well. The Cat 1 guys went down, the Cat 2 and low Cat 3 stayed around the same and the others went up.

I was 9.1 before the change and my first WHS index was 7.2 which meant I had a course handicap of 9.

My mate who was always scratch with the odd week here or there at +1 has been +2 for nearly all of WHS.

All of the seniors that I played with over the winter that were 15+ under congu gained 2 or 3 shots under WHS.

The slope rating of 139 was the cause of it. I’d imagine there are some places out there that didn’t see much change at all due to the slope.

 

[Deleted member 1147]

I think the average low player dropped by about 2 shots from what I’ve seen.
We now have 18 at 0.0 or lower.

 

[rulefan]

Are these new handicaps referring to HI, CH or PH? Slope will have made a difference to differentials in addition to strokes received.

 

[patricks148]

At ours everyone know of 5 or under went down by a couple of shots, anyone I know over that went up. Quite a few guys who had been the same sort of handicap of 2 and 3 for years all of a sudden were off scratch, which by their own admission were no where near scratch golfers.
Mine was a bit of a balls up, as the prev winter I'd been a winter member at Nairn Dunbar while our course changes we being done. I'd had a lot of NQ scores there and ended up with 1.8 there and 3 at my home club?

 

[wjemather]

Are these new handicaps referring to HI, CH or PH? Slope will have made a difference to differentials in addition to strokes received.

Slope, and any Course Rating to SSS differential, really only had a small effect; it is the relationship between reductions and increases (and buffer zones didn't really correlate with scoring patterns) under UHS that account for most of the differences that were seen.

As such, 0.1 reductions for Category 1 golfers were readily offset by 0.1 increases resulting in higher handicaps, and conversely, for categories 4 and 5 in particular, large reductions meant that even very infrequent good scores wouldn't be offset by frequent 0.1 increases resulting in lower handicaps.

 

[JonnyGutteridge]

I went down from 5.5 or 5.6 to about 4.3 with WHS.

If you consider that previously, it would take 50 rounds under handicap to get down to scratch from 5.4 getting 0.1 cuts each time, it’s obviously made it a lot easier under the new system.

I wouldn’t say course rating has made things easier, because CSS was always +1 and frequently +2, occasionally +3 whereas now the course rating is 71.3 and PCC doesn’t kick in no matter what the conditions are like.

The main factor, as I keep saying, is that general play cards seem to be used by low handicap players to stay low/get lower. Having a bad run of form? You’ll see a whole glut of general play cards out in to maintain the handicap.

 

[rulefan]

Slope, and any Course Rating to SSS differential, really only had a small effect; it is the relationship between reductions and increases (and buffer zones didn't really correlate with scoring patterns) under UHS that account for most of the differences that were seen.

As such, 0.1 reductions for Category 1 golfers were readily offset by 0.1 increases resulting in higher handicaps, and conversely, for categories 4 and 5 in particular, large reductions meant that even very infrequent good scores wouldn't be offset by frequent 0.1 increases resulting in lower handicaps.

I understand. However, the relative difference at the higher end between the old Exact and the new Course handicap isn't clear in most posts.

 

[D-S]

I understand. However, the relative difference at the higher end between the old Exact and the new Course handicap isn't clear in most posts.

At the low end of the spectrum the difference Handicap Index and Course Handicap is almost always very very small unless playing an extremely high slope.

 

[Steve Wilkes]

At ours everyone know of 5 or under went down by a couple of shots, anyone I know over that went up. Quite a few guys who had been the same sort of handicap of 2 and 3 for years all of a sudden were off scratch, which by their own admission were no where near scratch golfers.
Mine was a bit of a balls up, as the prev winter I'd been a winter member at Nairn Dunbar while our course changes we being done. I'd had a lot of NQ scores there and ended up with 1.8 there and 3 at my home club?

If out of their last 20 rounds they had put in 8 scores in and around the Course Rating and they don't think they're Scratch Golfers, either their view of Scratch is wrong, or their course is rated wrong

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Picking up on this thread we’ve had an interesting WHS related email from the club.

The club’s experience now that a good ‘settling in‘ period has passed, is that WHS has resulted in a general lowering of member handicaps (that implies across the board)

Plus analysis of those playing in medals of the last year (two a month) reveals a 68:32 split between handicap (PH) divisions with 68% being in 0-14 and 32% 15-28 (I’ve noted previously just how few members in the >20 PH range are playing in medals for whatever reason….typically <10). This means that the current even split of ‘prize’ fund is inequitable. Given this for the next three months we are trialling a new split with Div 1 being 0-11, Div 2 12-28.

The club also reminds us that we are modifying the handicap entry requirement for board competitions…increasing from six to eight the minimum number of rounds on our WHS record in the year up to the date of any competition. The rounds can be of any nature…Comp or GP, Home or Away. The only exception to this rule is the Club Championship for which six club competition rounds must be on our record for the year.

Club also reminds us that the general ethos of the WHS is the continued submission of scores to validate the average based calculation of handicap index values - that our handicap committee feel that this is vital to creating equity within a competitive field and all members are encouraged to continue to pro-actively develop and build their handicap record throughout the season.

Clrarly our handicap committee is monitoring what’s going on.

 

[Backsticks]

Our hc committee takes a different view. It mistrusts general play scores, and actively obstructs them, and certainly would not promote their use. It takes a UHS era mentality that it would open the floodgates to hc manipulation. It thinks it know better than WHS and Congu, and deliberately biforcates from the WHS method and ethos.

In both their criticism and defence, they are typical club golfers with no particular golf administration, specialist handicap system training, or knowledge of statistics and amateur golf acores.

Virtually no gp scores are submitted by members here. While they know they cannot, they would ban them completely if they could. As a 'good' club member I have submitted none (i post about 25 cards a year all in competition).

 

[HeftyHacker]

Our hc committee takes a different view. It mistrusts general play scores, and actively obstructs them, and certainly would not promote their use. It takes a UHS era mentality that it would open the floodgates to hc manipulation. It thinks it know better than WHS and Congu, and deliberately biforcates from the WHS method and ethos.

In both their criticism and defence, they are typical club golfers with no particular golf administration, specialist handicap system training, or knowledge of statistics and amateur golf acores.

Virtually no gp scores are submitted by members here. While they know they cannot, they would ban them completely if they could. As a 'good' club member I have submitted none (i post about 25 cards a year all in competition).

I find this a bit mental. With a young family I rarely enter the club comps and play when I can (midweek evenings and early mornings at weekends). When I enter opens it tends to be pairs or team comps.

Without General Play cards (which even so i don't have loads of as I often play alone) I reckon my handicap would be about 4 higher - Which then means on the rare occasions I could enter a comp I'd be going in with a handicap that has no bearing on my form or ability.

Would that be more acceptable to them?

 

[Backsticks]

It would be more acceptable to them, yes. As they see however few single comp score you have as 'valid', but any gp scores as, probably, invalid, or at best, suspect. And the fewer the suspect, or probably manipulated scores, the better. GP = cheaters free for all, and thus, bad

I agree its mental. And their position of thinking they know better than WHS as arrogant.

 

[IanM]

Good to hear Farnham are operating well. I've no idea what the view of our handicap committee is we've had no communication in this respect. That either means everything is operating well, or they are not getting involved.

Regardless, I haven't changed my view that they new system is too easy to fiddle.

In fact, I might run a demo for the golf unions where I set up a bogus profile and get a handicap double my real one and see what I can win! Purely in the interest of experiment you understand!