Hcap system - I don`t get it .

[wjemather]

Can someone explain to me why it is called the WHS when every Country uses a varying degree of the original one ?

That's easy. Because the Handicap Index (which is the only number that matters) is directly comparable the world over, which means anyone with a WHS Handicap Index can complete against each other equitably.

Complaining that there are slight variations in implementation is a bit like complaining that not all golf courses are identical.

 

[rulefan]

if a player goes out and submits several General Play rounds, and plays as best they can, tell me why that is cheating?

It isn't

If he has said he is submitting scores with the "express purpose of increasing his handicap"

If he does this by deliberately returning poorer scores than he is capable of on the day he is cheating.
See the last line of #72

 

[clubchamp98]

I suggest you do the same. You have invented a scenario that is absolutely nonsense. clubchamp98 has already said his friend is no cheat. That is exactly what you are accusing him off. Or being dishonest or wrongful manipulation. Yet, there is nothing in WHS that defines when general play rounds should be submitted.

He is a cheat imo.
He used the system to manipulate his handicap.

 

[Swango1980]

I suggest you re-read #66 ("Imo he’s a cheat").

OK, I apologise for that. The danger of reading through posts too quickly.

So, in the opinion of clubchamp98 he IS a cheat. However, from the information we have, we still only know that this opinion is formed simply because he submitted several general play rounds before a competition. However, he has not told us he intentionally played badly. If clubchamp was to say he purposely put in bad scores, then I would 100% agree, as I alluded to before.

However, as a handicap secretary, even if clubchamp98 came forward, we only have his word that he cheated, and this would be based on submitting these scores. That is clearly not enough evidence to say he was a cheat, and a decent handicap secretary should know that. If that player had gone out and played golf to the level he would always try to play, then he is simply using the system to his advantage. If he was losing several great scores, shot at a time he was playing the best golf he had played in a long long time, then he is genuinely going to know that there is a high probability his handicap will increase, even if he plays well relative to current form. Whether there is a comp coming up or not should be irrelevant, there is no restriction on when these general play scores can be submitted.

 

[Swango1980]

It isn't

If he does this by deliberately returning poorer scores than he is capable of on the day he is cheating.
See the last line of #72

100% agree to this, as I have already said. But, we do not have that information. Furthermore, if clubchamp98 didn't come forward and ask the Committee to look at this behaviour, and question the player on how well they played, it is next to impossible for the Committee to randomly spot a player having a sudden increase before a matchplay comp (or any comp), let alone determine whether these were honest scores or not.

 

[backwoodsman]

Has this thread got anything whatsoever to do with rules? Shouldn't it be in 'The Lounge' along with the myriad other 'I don't like WHS/WHS is fine' threads?

 

[Swango1980]

He is a cheat imo.
He used the system to manipulate his handicap.

We see golfers manipulate the rules to get a free drop when they are in a really dodgy position. It is not cheating, it is using the rules to your advantage (or just getting plain lucky).

Unless this guy intentionally played badly in these general play rounds, all he did was submit a surge of general play scores, knowing his handicap was likely to increase. Look at it from his point of view. He will argue that his handicap has simply increased to reflect how he is playing at the moment. That is exactly one of the big marketing points of WHS. They can't exactly say on one hand that WHS is great because player handicaps will increase more quickly to reflect a players form, yet on the other hand punish and discipline players if they submit several general play scores and get a decent handicap increase.

 

[clubchamp98]

100% agree to this, as I have already said. But, we do not have that information. Furthermore, if clubchamp98 didn't come forward and ask the Committee to look at this behaviour, and question the player on how well they played, it is next to impossible for the Committee to randomly spot a player having a sudden increase before a matchplay comp (or any comp), let alone determine whether these were honest scores or not.

I do get where your coming from.
It’s almost impossible to pull someone for this even though he told me what he was going to do.
I didn’t play with him ( I might never again) so can’t attest if he tried his best.
But it leaves a bad taste.

But WHS facilitates this sort of behaviour more , and lots of golfers are starting to think like him.
I hear it in the clubhouse every week.
That imo shows the system is flawed if it’s that easy to manipulate with no chance of being questioned because
“ nothing wrong has been done” and basically impossible to prove otherwise.

 

[clubchamp98]

We see golfers manipulate the rules to get a free drop when they are in a really dodgy position. It is not cheating, it is using the rules to your advantage (or just getting plain lucky).

Unless this guy intentionally played badly in these general play rounds, all he did was submit a surge of general play scores, knowing his handicap was likely to increase. Look at it from his point of view. He will argue that his handicap has simply increased to reflect how he is playing at the moment. That is exactly one of the big marketing points of WHS. They can't exactly say on one hand that WHS is great because player handicaps will increase more quickly to reflect a players form, yet on the other hand punish and discipline players if they submit several general play scores and get a decent handicap increase.

Yes get that.
But if he had just done that no problem.
But by announcing it in advance is slightly different imo.
He obviously didn’t play badly by only getting one back???

 

[Swango1980]

I do get where your coming from.
It’s almost impossible to pull someone for this even though he told me what he was going to do.
I didn’t play with him ( I might never again) so can’t attest if he tried his best.
But it leaves a bad taste.

But WHS facilitates this sort of behaviour more , and lots of golfers are starting to think like him.
I hear it in the clubhouse every week.
That imo shows the system is flawed if it’s that easy to manipulate with no chance of being questioned because
“ nothing wrong has been done” and basically impossible to prove otherwise.

It is one of the quirks of the system. Some will like it, others hate it.

One of the guys I play with is one of the most honest guys you'll ever know. Real lovely guy, and when we moved clubs his Index went from about 10ish down to 5.8. Played some great golf, and had 3 or 4 unbelievable rounds for him. However, he then started losing that consistency, and even developed the shanks in the last month or 2. Nowhere near that level. As we have gone out, he has at times openly said he was about to lose a ridiculously low score and he'd get an increase for the weekend comp. He may have even had 2 or 3 great scores about to drop off. The fact that his handicap was about to change this way was likely going to encourage him to get an extra round or 2 during the week. WHS provides that extra incentive. I can absolutely guarantee you that he went out to play as well as he could, but there was never any chance he'd submit a score better than the once he was losing. So, he knew his handicap would increase, I did. And, to be fair, so it should, because it was clearly doing its job based on his current performances.

I've no idea about the character of the guy you played with, nor if he played to his best current ability. You'd have a good impression of that. But, a handicap committee is certainly not going to know the good or bad intentions of a player based a string of submitted scores. Maybe, if a long term pattern emerged that a player always seemed to submit many general play scores before comps, and get increases, you might begin to wonder if that was a coincidence or the player was intentionally playing badly. But, I reckon it would be difficult for a human to identify that long term pattern unless someone asked them to look at it, they'd probably need a computer to be able to highlight these trends

 

[rulefan]

We see golfers manipulate the rules to get a free drop when they are in a really dodgy position. It is not cheating, it is using the rules to your advantage (or just getting plain lucky).
.

How do you actually manipulate a RoG?

 

[Swango1980]

How do you actually manipulate a RoG?

Exactly. Insert any word you think is more appropriate. People subjectively see manipulation differently. Some people will see a player getting a free drop, that gets them out of trouble, as manipulation of the rules. Others, will see it as simply using the rules that happens to gain them an advantage. However, whatever your thoughts, it is certainly not cheating or dishonest. The rules are being applied as written.

Same here. Some people will see a player getting an extra shot or 2 before a competition as manipulation, in that they were able to benefit from the fact they were losing one or 2 great scores in the rounds preceding the competition. Others will see it as the player using the WHS system as documented, and it happened to work to their advantage in terms of the upcoming competition.

As far as the Rules of Golf are concerned, it is up to the referees to decide if rules are being applied correctly, or cheating is occuring. Same with handicap committees. They need to know if a player has submitted genuine general play scores, that were played to an acceptable standard, or whether cheating was going on. If a Handicap Committee start throwing accusations of cheating every time a player's handicap increases before a comp, because they submitted 2 or 3 general play scores in the week or so leading up to it, good luck with that. The way the system works, this will happen time and time again. I feel sorry for players submitting scores, if a fear is generated that they will be accused of cheating every time they lose a bad score before a comp.

 

[woofers]

Ummm, all this talk of the WHS General Play scores being used to “manipulate” handicaps seem to have missed the point that under UHS there was the supplementary score facility, and I am aware of players under the old system putting in a supplementary to move their exact handicap from x.4 to x.5, thus gaining a shot in a single round.

 

[Old Skier]

The Handicap Committee should have been all over this - with the assistance of someone reporting such behaviour, if necessary.

And here’s the rub, you always get the allegations by rumour or forum after the event. Perhaps the poster should have approached the committee with his allegations, or did he?

 

[Old Skier]

Ummm, all this talk of the WHS General Play scores being used to “manipulate” handicaps seem to have missed the point that under UHS there was the supplementary score facility, and I am aware of players under the old system putting in a supplementary to move their exact handicap from x.4 to x.5, thus gaining a shot in a single round.

Give over, everything is about the new system. There was nearly a civil war when it changed to CSS and even bigger one when handicaps went to 28.

It appears that everyone is a cheat except the one making the allegations.

Golf for the majority of us it about fun/banter/and getting out in the fresh air.

Easy solution, stop having prizes in comps.

 

[Old Skier]

I agree but he told me in advance what he was going to do.
I think that’s wrong.

Are you saying that you knew he might be manipulating his handicap but didn’t inform anyone.

 

[Swango1980]

Ummm, all this talk of the WHS General Play scores being used to “manipulate” handicaps seem to have missed the point that under UHS there was the supplementary score facility, and I am aware of players under the old system putting in a supplementary to move their exact handicap from x.4 to x.5, thus gaining a shot in a single round.

Indeed. Although, this has been discussed in depth a while ago. Although they could do that, they pretty much had a 10% chance of being at that point where they'd be going from x.4 to x.5. Even if they were, or willing to submit several scores, they were realistically only ever going to go up by 1 shot in any reasonable time frame. And, they relied on the handicap committee accepting these scores before they touched their handicap.

As we moved to WHS, and after, it was pointed out many times that clearly WHS would make this sort of manipulation infinitely easier. Players could see huge jumps, and if they submitted many scores, their handicap could easily go up by several shots. I made this point that, for this type of player who was willing to intentionally submit bad scores, they could wrongfully manipulate their handicap much easier. WHS supporters assured us that it was nothing to worry about. They used the lines "if a player wants to cheat, they can do so on any system", and in response to how quickly WHS allows a handicap to increase, this was then defended as being a great thing, as it reflects current form better.

Yet, incredibly, when someone comes along and says a players handicap has increased quickly before a comp, these same people that rigidly defended the chances of a player being able to manipulate WHS before in comparison to UHS, are now strongly jumping in to say this particular player is cheating. A player, that may very well be using the system in exactly the way it is intended, and in the way they previously defended any accusations that WHS is easy to manipulate.

That is my gripe. I get clubchamp98's feeling on why it doesn't sit quite right. However, they need to be sure the player intentionally played badly. If so, then absolutely spot on. This player is a cheat, and fully demonstrates how WHS is much easier to get unfair handicap increases in quick time. However, if the player was playing as they should, and just happened to be losing great historic rounds, then that points towards two of the great advantages of WHS that we were told to believe. a) that is reflects form better and b) it provides extra incentive for golfers to play golf

 

[D-S]

That's easy. Because the Handicap Index (which is the only number that matters) is directly comparable the world over, which means anyone with a WHS Handicap Index can complete against each other equitably.

Complaining that there are slight variations in implementation is a bit like complaining that not all golf courses are identical.

If the Handicap Indexes are directly comparable the world over, why then does the UK and NI not allow 4BB scores and matchplay scores and other team format scores to be used in the calculation of handicaps? If the outcome is exactly the same shouldn’t they be allowable? The source data of any system is perhaps the most important component.
If it means that the end result is different then HI‘s are not directly comparable.
I would certainly say from personal experience that US handicap indexes are not comparable with UK ones.

 

[Deleted member 15717]

life is too short to worry about what other folks are doing.

Go out and play golf, enjoy the walk. As someone said earlier, way too much overthinking going on.

 

[AussieKB]

If the Handicap Indexes are directly comparable the world over, why then does the UK and NI not allow 4BB scores and matchplay scores and other team format scores to be used in the calculation of handicaps? If the outcome is exactly the same shouldn’t they be allowable? The source data of any system is perhaps the most important component.
If it means that the end result is different then HI‘s are not directly comparable.
I would certainly say from personal experience that US handicap indexes are not comparable with UK ones.

A scratch golfer in the US is about a 4-5 handicapper here in OZ, have had a few people from my club go to a US college and be off scratch but play Number one in the team, all the US players off plus handicaps could not break par, so how do they get plus handicaps ?