How Do You Make Comps Fair For Everyone

[daymond]

One competition with divisional prizes is the only option to keep everyone happy and in with a reasonable shout of winning something.
Only exception is the club c'ship lowest gross wins but with a concurrent lowest nett again to keep everyone in with a chance of something.

 

[GB72]

Looking at it from the club's point of view, having divisions for every comp is not that practical, we have a comp every week with top 3 prizes and lowest gross prize. If you have divisions then the amount that needs to be paid out in prizes would treble. We have divisions for bigger comps but not ideal for weekly comps.

 

[Parmo]

We usually have three divisions for monthly medals & Stablefords 0-12 13-19 20-28 works well for us as only first place wins anything.

The handicap system works fine, what doesn't work is the moaning golfers who don't practice enough then moan they don't win anything. If only they put as much time into practising than moaning about the woes of the world.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

Why can't a scratch golfer shoot ten below their handicap?

They can, but in the case of my club, that would mean beating the course record (set by a pro) by 4 shots.
It's not going to happen.

Although I can't explain it in words, it strikes me that it's harder for the scratch player to endlessly keep knocking on the door for birdies than an 18 h'cap to make a lot of pars (net birdie) on a good day.
Maybe someone would like to comment....

Making 10 birdies in a round for a scratch golfer is eminently more difficult than a 28 h'capper turning 10 doubles into 10 singles, there is simply less margin for error. There are loads of ways to make bogey and doing so doesn't necessarily involve hitting a decent shot. I've made a whole ton of bogeys hitting the ball badly and scrambling but I don't hear of many people scrambling for birdie.

10 under for a scratch golfer probably means making 10 one putts after hitting the green in regulation and I don't care how good you are, that is nearly impossible for a club golfer.

Another point is that pro's actually don't ever shoot 10 under their h'cap, they all play off plus h'caps, I believe Tiger is +8 which means 10 under par is actually only 2 under his h'cap.

 

[bobmac]

Shot a 63 net of 12 in last medal and in the following stableford off 11 got 41 points and won on count back on last hole !

41 points off your new h/cap??? Impressive.

My own personal experience of this is while off 3 handicap, I played in the monthly medal at Weston Super Mare back in 1995.
I scored 16 pars and 2 birdies. A very satisfying game indeed.
Of course, no matter what you score, you always feel you could have done better and I was no different. 2 other birdie putts lipped out from about 10 and 12 feet, so could have been 4 under but certainly no less.
Now, the following day, I looked at the results sheet and at the bottom was "best gross"....ME...by 3 shots
I wander down to the pro shop to collect my lovely voucher only to be told that there was no prize for best gross.
As I never look at net scores I asked if I had been paced there. Nowhere near it.
Angry was an understatement and the pro was embarrassed (not his decision).
I could at best have shot 4 under which was 66, and 7 under my h/cap. Had I holed the 2 extra putts, I would have been tied for 7th with only 5 prizes.

I never played another medal.

So when someone says its just as easy for a CatI player to shoot 10 under their handicap as a 20 handicapper, as someone who has been there, I must disagree.

 

[Farneyman]

I dont play to win, only to get better and lower my handicap. If I win sometime then great but a new PB in my book is more than enough.

As far as comps go I use them to try and beat PBs, par3's, fairways, putts etc. I love playing golf when you have to putt out. I hate that aspect of bounce games of gimmies.

Its not a proper par if it dont go in the whole.

 

[JustOne]

I refer to my above offering and take back my NEVER(!) as I did encounter one incident at Glenbervie a long time ago and as it was the Falkirk Royal Bank manager that was involved, it does not count, as I think we now all realise what bank managers are!

I'll graciously accept that apology

 

[GB72]

To be controversial then have competitions become basically a near compulsory addition to your fees to keep your handicap going. If you cannot win but just want the chance to lower your handicap why should you pay an extra few quid every week to do so. If everyone had to hand in every card after every round so as handicaps were always up to date and there were plenty of chances to bring it down during regular play would you feel the urge to enter comps

 

[chrisd]

Playing off 13 recently in a big club competition I carded a nett 66 to beat into 2nd a 5 h/capper who shot 73 gross (68). I have put in massive afforts this year to improve and the computer cut me from 13.3 to 12. Having sat on the golf committee until a couple of years ago I had a real job to convince the secretary that I should be given a further cut under what we used to call rule 19, I was party to bringing in a rule of thumb that anyone shooting nett 67 or under would get an additional cut as a low h/capper would have to shoot a club record to win - I did finally get a further one shot cut.

I want to win competitions if I enter them, why else pay and enter? but I do want my handicap to reflect my current playing abilty too!

Chris

 

[RGDave]

Making 10 birdies in a round for a scratch golfer is eminently more difficult than a 28 h'capper turning 10 doubles into 10 singles, there is simply less margin for error. There are loads of ways to make bogey and doing so doesn't necessarily involve hitting a decent shot. I've made a whole ton of bogeys hitting the ball badly and scrambling but I don't hear of many people scrambling for birdie.

10 under for a scratch golfer probably means making 10 one putts after hitting the green in regulation and I don't care how good you are, that is nearly impossible for a club golfer.

Thanks Hawk, you've saved my brain on this one. You've said it for me. Phew....

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Not sure comps have become a near compulsory addition but for a lot of clubs a monthly medal and stableford at the minimum is a necessary criteria for a lot of club golfers. Ignoring the issue of silly scores winning for a second, I think most club golfers relish the chance to peg it up in a competitive environment and test their skills against themselves and the course/elements.

I think if you were devoid of competitive play, interest would soon drop, memberships decline and some clubs struggle to keep going. I enjoy my regular Saturday greedy but couldn't envisage playing that week in week out.

 

[USER1999]

We usually have three divisions for monthly medals & Stablefords 0-12 13-19 20-28 works well for us as only first place wins anything.

The handicap system works fine, what doesn't work is the moaning golfers who don't practice enough then moan they don't win anything. If only they put as much time into practising than moaning about the woes of the world.

But why practice? All you need to be is the best in your division. If you practice, you get cut, and winning gets harder, as you get less shots.

Golf is the only game where you can make it more difficult for yourself.

 

[19th]

I took the time last night to nip to the club to inspect the result for the medal last Saturday - I know I could have looked up HDID but I don't get a wee 'Rosie' when I do that!
A super day for golf and the winners handicaps, in order of the top ten, were 3,5,4,19,3,4,6,6,17 and 5. The net scores were from a winning 65 to 9th equal at 70.(Par71)

Where are all the mythical very high handicappers. being pillored on here, that take all the top places in medals??

 

[StrangelyBrown]

The only way to make competitions fair is to not bother playing, give everyone the same score, then eff off to the clubhouse for a pint.

Everything else is just waffle, conjecture and hearsay.

 

[HughJars]

Where are all the mythical very high handicappers. being pillored on here, that take all the top places in medals??

Statistically they do less well as a group becasue unlike low handicappers they have much more variance in their play.

However, in our heads we feel that a duffer hitting a low round has been protecting his handicap, so a nett 7 under from a 28 h'cap is seen as banidtry and noted by all, whereas a nett 6 under by a 7 h'cap is seen as him having a great round, becasue he's alreay low, and reckoned therefore to be 'playing the game'.

 

[19th]

So Hugh, what you are stating is that the posters on here complaining about high handicap players winning all the time ....are, according to stats,... talking crap!

 

[Ethan]

So Hugh, what you are stating is that the posters on here complaining about high handicap players winning all the time ....are, according to stats,... talking crap!

To use stats terminology, your sample size quoted above based on one competition means sod all. A very much larger sample size is needed.

Anyway, the point about variance is that although the averages for high and low handicap players may be equally close to handicap, higher variance is a good thing since a high variance below average is a better winning score than a lower variance. The variance above average does not really matter in the UK handicap system - 3 above buffer zone has the same effect as 30.

 

[GB72]

The purpose of this post was not to pilory high handicappers, as I said, I won plenty of comps when my handicap was higher so am in no position to complain.

The point was more as to whether those with a mid handicap feel that they have no chance of ever winning a comp as it is, at my club anyway, more likely that at least one of the high handicappers will have a great round as they improve and post a score that they cannot achieve yet they are not at a level to compete for the lowest gross score.

To my mind, the cuts when you are at a higher handicap are not big enough and often do not keep up with the rate of improvement. Bigger cuts as people start out would level out the playing field quicker.

 

[19th]

So Hugh, what you are stating is that the posters on here complaining about high handicap players winning all the time ....are, according to stats,... talking crap!

To use stats terminology, your sample size quoted above based on one competition means sod all. A very much larger sample size is needed.

When someone uses 'according to stats...' I assume that they are quoting an informed source but you may be correct and Hugh may have got his facts wrong.

 

[Ethan]

So Hugh, what you are stating is that the posters on here complaining about high handicap players winning all the time ....are, according to stats,... talking crap!

To use stats terminology, your sample size quoted above based on one competition means sod all. A very much larger sample size is needed.

When someone uses 'according to stats...' I assume that they are quoting an informed source but you may be correct and Hugh may have got his facts wrong.

Actually I was referring to your list of the winners' handicaps last weekend at your club.

However, I think, Hugh's point about greater variance is actually an explanation why higher handicappers have a greater chance of a very low score. There are also reasons why this doesn't happen very often, but that may be another discussion.