I've quit senior golf

[Neilds]

How does it? Surely losing on the 18th means they were correct? I played my best round of the entire year that day, but my partner barely turned up so hard to gauge.

If you want to push the pedantics to the nth degree, for handicaps to be totally correct (and for all to play exactly to them) then no match would ever be concluded! I said round about correct, 4 &3 isn't exactly a big loss

 

[Orikoru]

If you want to push the pedantics to the nth degree, for handicaps to be totally correct (and for all to play exactly to them) then no match would ever be concluded! I said round about correct, 4 &3 isn't exactly a big loss

I think that's a weird take. 4 & 3 is a sound beating in my book. To say it was close, maybe 2 & 1 tops?

 

[cliveb]

But, perhaps some Seniors are also quite cunning. Been playing the game for decades. Know the tricks of the trade. Put more importance on their golf and less focus on other parts of life (like work as the obvious one). And so are quite good at structuring their golfing life to ensure their handicap doesn't get cut for casual meaningless golf, and is nice and high for more important rounds.

Golf was traditionally a game of integrity. We now seem to have plenty of golfers without that integrity who just want to win.
Your comment appears to be suggesting that the group who manipulate their handicaps are disproportionately the seniors.
I'd have thought that given seniors have been around for a long time, they would less likely to be in that category.
At my club, the daft scores from high handicappers are nearly always by those new to the game and rapidly improving. Most of them are not seniors.

One problem with WHS is that it doesn't respond quickly enough to rapidly improving players. Under CONGU, if you were a CAT 4 player and shot the lights out a couple of times, you'd be down about 10 shots pronto. (I recall being cut 6 shots overnight after coming in 10 under CSS and getting an ESR as well. Was totally uncompetitive for months after).

 

[Neilds]

I think that's a weird take. 4 & 3 is a sound beating in my book. To say it was close, maybe 2 & 1 tops?

6&5 is big for me

 

[Orikoru]

6&5 is big for me

That's an absolute thrashing and I wouldn't expect to see it very often! I think I lost one singles match by that once - against a guy playing off 9 who promptly got cut to 6 in the weeks afterwards. Considering I lost both my singles knockouts in two and three hole play-offs this year you can see why I think 4 & 3 is a pretty big margin. Anyway let's agree to disagree as we've sidetracked this a bit now.

 

[Swango1980]

This demographic of golfers are an odd kettle of fish. I've even had it in my knockout matches at my club at times. You'll play against a couple of guys who clearly used to be single figures back in the day, but are now both off 15-17 due to advancing years. However, they'll both chip and putt like Gods still, and in Betterball they absolutely pull your pants down. I remember two years ago losing a Betterball match against a 14 and a 16 whose combined Betterball score was level par gross after 15, did us 4 & 3 and holed every putt all day. It's a tale as old as time.

I played against two such Seniors last month, when we had a match against Woodhall Spa. They were both lovely guys, great ball strikers, great short game, and it was a really tough game. I think I'd be a great guy if I played golf so consistently.

However, I was a lot longer than them, so I just needed to focus on my strengths relative to them, and try and take advantage of that area. I did, it put their second (and third) shots under more pressure as they were well behind me, and my side just about won on the last. Had I not executed that side of my game well that day, they'd have pulled our pants down.

But, that is golf. We can get an absolute kicking by any demographic or any handicap level on a day things don't go well for us and go well for them. I think as long as people have an up to date handicap record, then you should always feel at the beginning of a match that, although you could get a hiding, it could also be a day where you give them the hiding. Then cross your fingers and go out there and whack it off the first tee.

 

[jim8flog]

I knew someone would say that, but we all know that course ratings are completely made up and half of them are wrong, so my original point may still stand.

How many different courses have you played to come to that conclusion?

 

[Swango1980]

Golf was traditionally a game of integrity. We now seem to have plenty of golfers without that integrity who just want to win.
Your comment appears to be suggesting that the group who manipulate their handicaps are disproportionately the seniors.
I'd have thought that given seniors have been around for a long time, they would less likely to be in that category.
At my club, the daft scores from high handicappers are nearly always by those new to the game and rapidly improving. Most of them are not seniors.

One problem with WHS is that it doesn't respond quickly enough to rapidly improving players. Under CONGU, if you were a CAT 4 player and shot the lights out a couple of times, you'd be down about 10 shots pronto. (I recall being cut 6 shots overnight after coming in 10 under CSS and getting an ESR as well. Was totally uncompetitive for months after).

My comment wasn't a theory I have.

It was simply a potential explanation if it is genuinely true that Seniors are generally guilty of having handicaps that are too high.

I don't have enough data or personal experience to confidentially say this is true. I mean, it may be true for some Seniors, just like it is true for some ladies, some juniors and some men under 55. Just that, if it is actually is true in general, that I was trying to think of some sort of logical explanation.

 

[jim8flog]

Golf was traditionally a game of integrity. We now seem to have plenty of golfers without that integrity who just want to win.
Your comment appears to be suggesting that the group who manipulate their handicaps are disproportionately the seniors.
I'd have thought that given seniors have been around for a long time, they would less likely to be in that category.
At my club, the daft scores from high handicappers are nearly always by those new to the game and rapidly improving. Most of them are not seniors.

One problem with WHS is that it doesn't respond quickly enough to rapidly improving players. Under CONGU, if you were a CAT 4 player and shot the lights out a couple of times, you'd be down about 10 shots pronto. (I recall being cut 6 shots overnight after coming in 10 under CSS and getting an ESR as well. Was totally uncompetitive for months after).

That is a very good point. However if you got an ESR you must have done similar before that one so under the WHS that would be 2 good scores in the 8 calculation with an immediate ESR.

 

[jim8flog]

I knew someone would say that, but we all know that course ratings are completely made up and half of them are wrong, so my original point may still stand.

AS an additional questions to my other one - When playing away prior to the WHS how much notice did you take of the SSS verses Par?

Is it just the WHS that has made you more aware of how important the Course rating is in handicaps compared to the awareness that SSS/CSS had the same effect.

 

[nickjdavis]

AS an additional questions to my other one - When playing away prior to the WHS how much notice did you take of the SSS verses Par?

Is it just the WHS that has made you more aware of how important the Course rating is in handicaps compared to the awareness that SSS/CSS had the same effect.

Funnily enough, when we played on social away days out within our group from our club (not matches) I often proposed that folks handicaps were adjusted by the difference between our own courses SSS (69) and that of the course we were playing. I was aware for a long time before WHS came along that there needed to be some sort of levelling up, to reflect the differences in absolute difficulty of varying courses....and from my own point of view I always aware that SSS was a better stake in the ground against which to measure your score.

Unfortunately I never made the leap to having a second rating, for a higher handicapper, and then using the sliding scale to determine what shots any particular golfer would have got. I wonder what might have happened to golf handicapping if I'd thought of that?

(though I did subsequently become aware that Dean Snell Knuth got there before me!!)

 

[Orikoru]

AS an additional questions to my other one - When playing away prior to the WHS how much notice did you take of the SSS verses Par?

Is it just the WHS that has made you more aware of how important the Course rating is in handicaps compared to the awareness that SSS/CSS had the same effect.

Don't really want to talk about all this again, particularly when it's irrelevant to the OP. The answer though is no, never gave a toss about SSS or understood what it was for.

 

[Captain_Black.]

Interesting comments guys.
It obviously varies from club to club & no doubt there are some who haven't experienced what I have.

To put my comments into context.
I had a discussion the other day where I commented to a senior section official that I think our course ground conditions are usually unsuitable to hold qualifiers between December & the end of March (England Golf stipulates this in its guide to clubs)

His reply was, ohh no it's fine (even though we generally loose balls plugging underground on the fairways)
We all need another 5 or 6 shots to complete in winter though!!!
So this is the mindset I'm up against.
Manufactured handicaps in winter which are still artificially high come spring & summer
All I am doing by entering is contributing to their prize fund.
Enough is enough.

 

[Voyager EMH]

One problem with WHS is that it doesn't respond quickly enough to rapidly improving players. Under CONGU, if you were a CAT 4 player and shot the lights out a couple of times, you'd be down about 10 shots pronto. (I recall being cut 6 shots overnight after coming in 10 under CSS and getting an ESR as well. Was totally uncompetitive for months after).

48 years ago I got cut from 11 to 8 for a 5-over par in a midweek comp.
The following weekend I got cut from 8 to 5 for a level-par round.

11 to 5 for two scores in 4 days.
That just ain't happening now - AND IT SHOULD when applicable.
It might seem drastic - but would re-adjust upwards in the current normal way, if it needed to.
ESR needs to be bigger and with smaller threshold.

I see scores of 5 or 6 below handicap and reductions of only one shot occur to playing handicaps.
When ESRs occur - cuts are often only 2 to the playing handicap.

If I were to score 42 points (6 below PH) on our Captain's Day this Saturday, I would be cut from 4.3 to 3.5 - which is almost neither-here-nor-there to me - one shot.
42 points last year would have got me 4th place.

My overall view is that the more consistent you are, the less competitively successful you are.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

People seem to want to hark back to the days of the exceptional score being king, forget the norm of a player. Forget that, let it go.

Exceptional reductions do happen, the handicap committee at my place are very hot on these, but they can't be crackers just because of a one off.

Move on people.

 

[Golfmmad]

At our Senior matches the handicap limit is 28. We have a couple of guys over 30.
So I think that's fair.

My handicap went up very quickly last winter 27. I've now got it down to 23 and put in plenty of cards although not as many as normal as I've recently come back from a major operation.

Onwards and upwards.

 

[rosecott]

I knew someone would say that, but we all know that course ratings are completely made up and half of them are wrong, so my original point may still stand.

I suspect that you have little or no knowledge of how Course Ratings are derived. Such sweeping statements point me to that conclusion.

 

[chellie]

I played against a dutch lady many years ago who had a high handicap (45 ish) and was getting 2 shots on every hole.
She bogeyed the first, nett birdie so I'm one down.
On the 2nd she lipped out with her tee shot and sat a few inches from the hole. Nett 0.
I didn't hit a tee shot as I had already lost the hole.
2 down.
Years later, I learn the maximum h/cap had increased to 54.
I kind of lost interest

When was that Bob as all the older ladies I know (80 plus age) have never mentioned handicaps being that high before. There was 36, 36P and 36* if I remember rightly

 

[Orikoru]

I suspect that you have little or no knowledge of how Course Ratings are derived. Such sweeping statements point me to that conclusion.

Everyone knows how the ratings are derived. They think short courses are easy and long courses are hard, and ignore everything else.

 

[Voyager EMH]

People seem to want to hark back to the days of the exceptional score being king, forget the norm of a player. Forget that, let it go.

Exceptional reductions do happen, the handicap committee at my place are very hot on these, but they can't be crackers just because of a one off.

Move on people.

Someone at my club

22-7-25
87 - 20 = 67 and won the comp

29-7-25
85 - 19 = 66 and won the comp

Current HI is 15.7
Next comp his Playing Handicap (95%) he will play off 18. (CR-Par = 0.8 and SR 132)
His last 2 Score Differentials were 13.9 and 11.3 (adjustment for a quad bogey)
12.7 would seem more appropriate to me than 15.7
This would be just about the average of his last 2 scores.

I played with him on 22-7-25 comp. Out drives me easily. Really nice chap. Good member. Takes the game seriously - very well behaved. Respects the game, the rules, the course.

This is why I am not moving on as you would like me to.