I am not a Bandit - Honest

[Parsaregood]

More to the point, people who call people bandits whether in jest or not are in a way trying to diminish a good round of golf. An improving golfer should be rewarded for hard work/good play by winning sweeps etc all without people shouting bandit its really quite annoying. If you have a handicap you feel is too high it will soon sort itself out if that is the case, don't feel guilty if you've put work into your game, you deserve to win whatever it is for hard work. That is what makes the game FUN

 

[Region3]

If you play every week in a qualifier your handicap will be a true reflection of your ability, if I shoot 2 over par ie making 36 points I feel I have played no better than ok as I will not get a cut and that's just an 'average' round for myself also having the ability to shoot below par why would I be happy shooting 2 over? Most cat 1 golfers don't feel they have played well if they have 36 stableford points and that's a fact

I feel I've played well if I score 36pts, but we will have to agree we have different expectations.

Welcome to the forum btw, I hope you stick around.

 

[patricks148]

I feel I've played well if I score 36pts, but we will have to agree we have different expectations.

Welcome to the forum btw, I hope you stick around.

if you shot 36 points as a scratch golfer around my home track you would still get cut... 36 usually wins section one anyway

 

[Parsaregood]

On one of my courses you'd get cut . 1 aswell but I'd hardly call that playing well for a scratch player. It's basically what you would expect from them on a 'normal' day

 

[patricks148]

On one of my courses you'd get cut . 1 aswell but I'd hardly call that playing well for a scratch player. It's basically what you would expect from them on a 'normal' day

but playing under your handicap cannot be a bad day? a cut is a cut at the end of the day

 

[Parsaregood]

Sure a cuts a cut but i doubt a scratch player would be jumping up and down at a level par round. If they played 5 qualifiers they're scores are inconsistent like everyone else I'd expect maybe two rounds under par a no return one in buffer or just outside and a level par.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Simply play as many comps as your membership and time allows and submit the cards. Over time your handicap will find it's level and if you click you'll get cut soon enough. In the meantime enjoy pinching the cash at the roll ups

 

[Dasit]

I get the bandit abuse every single round. Handicap is now 22, but shoots in the 80s on a par 72 course pretty much every round.

There are so limited handicap rounds and it is such a slow process for handicap to keep up with ability what am I supposed to do...

 

[GG26]

I play off of 25 and I am simply very inconsistent. I often hit several nice shots in a round, which get the "that's not the shot of a 25 handicapper" comments, but I can also hit a lot of rubbish so my scores can range from low 90s to 110.

Played in around twenty qualifiers last year and only got cut once, so until my consistency improves my handicap is about right. I think that it reduced by around 0.5 last year.

 

[Tashyboy]

The Bandits bit would not bother me at all, but the bottom line is you want to lower your hcap, reading your post the only one way that is going to happen is by having a few lessons. Eg bunker lesson, taking two to get out of a bunker usually equates to a blob. A couple of those a round and that's a potential good round that has quickly gone tits up.

good luck me man.

 

[rosecott]

You sound like me 12 months ago. I was playing well last spring but all our comps were non-q due to playing off winter tees. Once we got back on the grass tees I went through a poorer patch but my consistency was better and never scored lower than 32 points. My problem was our SSS is 2 lower than par and CSS was normally the same so I needed to score 39 Pts to get any cut at all.
I regularly got "that's not a drive of a 25 handicapper!" comments.
when my form did get better I still struggled to get my handicap down as even 41 points was only 1.2 cut for basically scoring nett 5 under par.

But par is not the benchmark for playing to or better than handicap. It's SSS you should be aiming for.

Last February our course was radically altered in the first of 2 stages of major change. We went from a tough par 72, SSS72 to a par 70. SSS68 over night. A year later, players still cannot get their head round that they need to score 38 points to play to handicap and that 36 points only equates to the 34 points of old.

 

[Green Bay Hacker]

So my official handicap is 25.1 but I do not have the swing of someone with that handicap. My game though does sometimes reflect that!

When I play well, I can score in the low 90’s which in a stableford comp can often give me quite a high score. Last Sunday for example I scored 41 points and won my roll up. I got loads of light hearted abuse about my play from my 2 PPs, and whilst they were joking, I could tell that there was an element of truth in it.

So here are the issues.

They can say “well how can you, with a 25 handicap, drive past my driver with your Ping crossover 4 iron?” (I don’t want to reply “its because you only hit your driver 200 yards!” so let it go.)

In Roll ups when on the green, they can say “take it away”, often from what seems like silly distances that could easily be missed! And I ask are you sure? Half the time, I will putt out anyway.

When I play badly though, I am topping it, missing greens, 2 shots out of bunkers, loosing balls and easily playing over 100 and 7-10 shots over my official handicap. (Last year’s Cooden meet was a prime example – played soooooo bad in the morning singles, but teamed up well with the Williams Clan in the afternoon and we won the team event)

I am also on a limited membership which means I can only play about 12 times a year, and cant enter all the comps so it is difficult to lower my handicap.

It has been mentioned to me several times I should go to club and ask them to reduce my handicap to make it fairer. But I don’t feel this is fair on me as I do not have great rounds every time I play and feel that I need to use my handicap shots. Yes, IF I was shooting low 90’s / high 80’s every time I play then that’s justified, but I don’t do that.

Anyone any thoughts? Should I change my handicap to reflect how I play on average, all time the time or to my potential?

Cheers,

Nick - Pancho Villa - Rose

Do you really have gimme's in roll ups that involve other groups or is it only when your group are playing against themselves?

 

[njrose51]

Do you really have gimme's in roll ups that involve other groups or is it only when your group are playing against themselves?

Yes it's a fine thing for our roll ups. If inside a putter length, it's a gimmie. Go figure!

 

[njrose51]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. My basic understanding is ... ignore what my PPs say, I'll play my own game and lower my handicap as my game improves! I'm happy with that!

 

[Green Bay Hacker]

Yes it's a fine thing for our roll ups. If inside a putter length, it's a gimmie. Go figure!

Out of interest how many play in the roll ups? If the whole field agree then no problem but a putter length seems a bit generous.

Go figure what?

 

[chris3081]

I thought (even though i've never done one) that roll ups were just a friendly social knock with strangers or other members. Surely gimme's is not a problem in that format. Or are they little competitions?

 

[Deleted Member 1156]

I thought (even though i've never done one) that roll ups were just a friendly social knock with strangers or other members. Surely gimme's is not a problem in that format. Or are they little competitions?

Most rollups involve several groups of players who put a couple of quid into the pot in the middle. It's a bit unfair if 1 group gives generous gimmies and another group doesn't but yes, they tend to be quite informal fun games.

 

[Dellboy]

It happens to us all, Im off 19 and for 3 weeks in a row I was knocking around the 92-93 mark, then on a cold wet day, wind blowing i hit a 83 & 84 the following day, could and should have been lower if I not tired to be cocky by putting with the wedge

The last few weeks I'm back up around the 90 mark so just enjoy the good days when they come.

 

[Deleted member 21258]

Your handicap should reflect your ability when playing well, not your average ability. If you are capable of shooting low 90's on a fairly regular basis then assuming the par of your course is around 72 then you should be playing off a lower handicap.

That's what I have found with my handicap, I need a good day to play to or better than it. Me personally I used to have two handicaps one for society golf and my official one(used only for comps), and my society one was quite a bit lower as I tend to play a lot better when I played with people I knew and I am fully relaxed.



Nick aka Mr four pointer (BANDIT ALERT :ears, your handicap will come down as you do well in comps, you definitely have the potential to drop it massively that is for sure, from what I saw when we played.

 

[Deleted Member 1156]

How about thinking about your handicap as a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is your best golf, 3 is an average round and 5 is playing pants. Your handicap should therefore reflect your scores when playing to level 2 ie. a good round but still room to improve otherwise you would never get cut.