How Do You Make Comps Fair For Everyone

[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.

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.

When you replied quoting my reference to Hugh's stats I accepted that this was the topic in question.

I accept that this one result is a small sample BUT I do show the first 10 scores returned and it was the latest return from my club, therefore not 'cherry picked'.
The other posters on here are posting using 'when I left a 28 handicapper with 45 points was winning' etc.. not the other scores only the one result- an even smaller sample to make facts fit - but I did not see any 'small sample' comment from you!!

 

[Ethan]

When you replied quoting my reference to Hugh's stats I accepted that this was the topic in question.

I accept that this one result is a small sample BUT I do show the first 10 scores returned and it was the latest return from my club, therefore not 'cherry picked'.
The other posters on here are posting using 'when I left a 28 handicapper with 45 points was winning' etc.. not the other scores only the one result- an even smaller sample to make facts fit - but I did not see any 'small sample' comment from you!!

I took the other comments as generalisations and examples rather than data, but I agree they are equally uninformative!

 

[19th]

I have just looked at last month's medal and the results are similar with the handicaps for the top of the sheet being 6,8,6,3,7,20,5,4,-2,10,8,8,6,4.

Now out of only the top 24 players I have illustrated for the last two medals there are only FOUR in double figure handicaps and this includes a ten(9.6)

No doubt this sample is again too small to count but I make the average handicap from my sample provided around 6 and not the bandit off 28 we are being offered on this thread.

 

[HughJars]

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.

CONGU has an analysis of results in matchplay, where it shows despite protestations to the contrary, that lower handicappers win more often.

I've also in the past gone over results from one of my former clubs when just such an argument came up, over the course of a year, Cat 1 golfers won more (and finished top 3) than anyone in full field events.(ie. no seperate cats per comp)

My current club has very few single digit players at all, and only two Cat 1 players, but our season long comp for most consistent player (top 15 score points each week) saw the Club Champ and lowest player (off 4) win and the next and only other Cat 1 off 5 was in the top 10.

 

[viscount17]

I remember reading somewhere (I think it was in Science of Golf) that the handicap system 'benefits' the low over the high handicapper by about 4 shots (and that's in both CONGU and the US systems).

Logically in any one-v-one match the low has the advantage. It swings the other way when there is a bigger field as the odds increase that one higher handicapper will do well (no one mentions the other 49 who played their usual rubbish - strange that).

maybe the buffer zones, and CSS, protect too much?
how about only applying a CSS where the scoring is better than SS; and any score better than SS is cut and the buffer is applied only for those 1 or 2 shots off handicap?