rulefan
Tour Winner
Further. Am I right in thinking that if the player doesn't get an adjustment from 18.1 but the returns a bad score, his index will go down by 2 strokes to about 16?
Increasing a Handicap Index
- Thread starter rulefan
- Start date
wjemather
Well-known member
This is the way i understand it (and how it seems to work)...
In your example, your player has been given a transition index of 18.1 (equal to his old congu exact). This is made up of 3 scores, 2 supplementaries and 1 artificial score.
The artificial score has a differential of 20.1; although you said the supplementaries were around the 18 mark, they must be equal to or higher than 20.1 otherwise his transition index would be lower (the minus 2 premium for three scores still applies).
Any adjustment at this stage is applied to all three differentials (including the artificial one). The next submitted score will remove the artificial score, with any adjustment remaining in place on the two earlier differentials. The player's new index will then be equal to the lowest differential minus 2.
As such, a very bad 3rd score will result in their index staying the same or increasing (depending on the value of the earlier differentials), but any score within a couple of strokes of playing to handicap will result in a reduction.
My explanations were a bit woolly earlier, so I hope this one is a bit clearer?
rulefan
Tour Winner
That is very clear, thanks. I wasn't aware of the significance of the artificial score but its need/use makes sense.
freshcat
Hacker
Sorry to jump on this thread, Ive just become Handicap Sec again after 5 years off. I have just recorded a general play 9 hole round for one of our members. His HI was 20.0 he carded
5,6,7,5,3,10,5,5,7 and has been cut to 16.9. I can not get my head around it.
rulefan
Tour Winner
Sounds like the same issue.
That will have been his best 'real' score (with a couple of 'artificial' scores) and therefore as he will have 3 scores the index will be based on that score -2.0.
If I have properly understood what wjemather has been trying to educate me in.
jim8flog
Journeyman Pro
I assume you have a copy of The Rules of Handicapping and have downloaded Guidance to the rules of handicapping
https://www.congu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/WHSDocs/Handicapping-Advice.pdf
It is important to understand
RoH rule 5.2
Players with very few cards in their record should expect their Handicap Index to jump around all over the place until they have 15 scores on it. All players should try to get a full handicap record of 20 scores asap.
Old Skier
Tour Winner
And in case you have trouble sleeping can be read in conjunction with https://www.englandgolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Rules-of-Handicapping-17-12-20.pdf
rulefan
Tour Winner
I'm a bit puzzled as to why they would have only included one (in this case) artificial score rather than padding the record with sufficient scores to make up 20 (say).
I wonder if the peculiar effect above was intentional. ie an 'average' score score resulting in a 2 stroke reduction.
wjemather
Well-known member
Transition handicaps are commonly not particularly accurate anyway since they are only loosely based on very old scores (from 2017 or earlier). For example, I've had a few members who's first card submitted slashed their transition handicap by 10 or more strokes. Putting more than the minimum artificial scores on the record would have kept their handicap artificially high for an extended period of time. With a maximum of 3 artificial scores, the result after 3 real scores is the same for as someone with a new handicap.
I'd actually question why it was deemed necessary at all. There would have been no harm in simply requiring people to have valid scores from 54 holes.
