Official WHS Survey

[IanM]

"Things happening far more frequently than we remember.."

1) Highly significant and indicative if talking about climate change

2) Absolutely in no way significant or indicative if talking at WHS

(Please see my autosignature if troubled by the above)

 

[nickjdavis]

Telling the low golfer that on average he will beat a 20hc - in a field of 100 golfers you will average 25th, but the 20 hc will average 60th ! So you are beating him more often than he beats you ! Oh by the way, you will never be first. But on average you will place better, so its fine ! - is not good.

In an ideal world, over the course of a season assuming 100 players in every comp, low handicappers as a group will finish on average in 50th place. Likewise a batch of 20 handicappers on average, will also finish in 50th place. It is when the low guys on average finish in 30th place and the high guys average 70th place that you have an unfair system.

You wont ever get an exact flat 50% for every handicap category, but a fair system should get you typically to between 45th and 55th place for any specific group.

 

[Dunesman]

In an ideal world, over the course of a season assuming 100 players in every comp, low handicappers as a group will finish on average in 50th place. Likewise a batch of 20 handicappers on average, will also finish in 50th place. It is when the low guys on average finish in 30th place and the high guys average 70th place that you have an unfair system.

That isnt what happens, though it is the common misconception. We all assumed your scenario is what, more or less, would happen. And something similar for winners. But what people have found, both by experience, and by delving deeper into WHS, is that ut is not the case, and my scenario that you quote is more the reality.

 

[wjemather]

That isnt what happens, though it is the common misconception. We all assumed your scenario is what, more or less, would happen. And something similar for winners. But what people have found, both by experience, and by delving deeper into WHS, is that ut is not the case, and my scenario that you quote is more the reality.

Who has delved deeper and where is their detailed analysis?

 

[nickjdavis]

That isnt what happens, though it is the common misconception. We all assumed your scenario is what, more or less, would happen. And something similar for winners. But what people have found, both by experience, and by delving deeper into WHS, is that ut is not the case, and my scenario that you quote is more the reality.

I undertook a pre/post WHS implementation analysis of competitions at my club back in 2022, comparing results under UHS for two years, with WHS results for two years (since extended to three when I included my analysis of 2023 results).

What this analysis showed (albeit I will admit that the data set is limited in comparison to all the rounds played at all the course across the land and 2020 is difficult to put into proper context due to the effect of Covid on the number of comps held and further limiting the data set) was that since the introduction of the WHS there has been a significant narrowing of the average finishing positions of golfers within various handicap groups.

Now this isn't meant to negate the views that high handicappers are more likely to win....by the sheer volatility of their scoring patterns I think we all agree that if there are a bunch of high 'cappers in a competition, the likelihood of one of them having a good day that a low guy can never match is quite high. This however is why I do not think it is useful looking solely at who wins a comp....it is more useful to look at the average handicap of folks finishing say in the top 5 or top 10....you get a much clearer picture of what is happening.

I need to see if I can dig around and find the raw data (or even a summary of the data) but this was a chart summarising the results. Due to the relatively small sample size, I had to used reasonably large handicap ranges to get meaningful blocks of data but there was enough to show clear differences between different groups.

I've never seen any other analysis trying to depict a similar trend.

 

[Dunesman]

Interesting analysis.
Acknowledging its limited data, but still. Its what we need more of.
I would read three things from it :

- the change seems to have happened in one jump. 2019 to 2020. After that, there is only natural variation I think, and the proportions for each category are in the margin of error.

- the only cat that changed is Cat 5. Their showing significantly improved. Whether that is out of or in proportion to their participation we cannot see from this data. It might look over represented.

- the spectrum of the below 28 categories hasnt really changed. Which I think was a goal of WHS, so this at least indicates that they have succeeded on that point.

Where I would disagree, is in top 5 or top 10 being the best measurement. Have you the same for actuall winners, or could you extract it. Wins is the bone of contention on this I think. Low men issue is that they are saying they cannot win now. They dont seem consoled (reasonably in my view) with the fact that they are outweighing higher men in the frequency of top 10s. Finishing 8th is not really why we compete.

 

[rulie]

Interesting analysis.
Acknowledging its limited data, but still. Its what we need more of.
I would read three things from it :

- the change seems to have happened in one jump. 2019 to 2020. After that, there is only natural variation I think, and the proportions for each category are in the margin of error.

- the only cat that changed is Cat 5. Their showing significantly improved. Whether that is out of or in proportion to their participation we cannot see from this data. It might look over represented.

- the spectrum of the below 28 categories hasnt really changed. Which I think was a goal of WHS, so this at least indicates that they have succeeded on that point.

Where I would disagree, is in top 5 or top 10 being the best measurement. Have you the same for actuall winners, or could you extract it. Wins is the bone of contention on this I think. Low men issue is that they are saying they cannot win now. They dont seem consoled (reasonably in my view) with the fact that they are outweighing higher men in the frequency of top 10s. Finishing 8th is not really why we compete.

As my wife says, tdb (too d*** bad), play better.

 

[nickjdavis]

Interesting analysis.
Acknowledging its limited data, but still. Its what we need more of.
I would read three things from it :

- the change seems to have happened in one jump. 2019 to 2020. After that, there is only natural variation I think, and the proportions for each category are in the margin of error.

- the only cat that changed is Cat 5. Their showing significantly improved. Whether that is out of or in proportion to their participation we cannot see from this data. It might look over represented.

- the spectrum of the below 28 categories hasnt really changed. Which I think was a goal of WHS, so this at least indicates that they have succeeded on that point.

Where I would disagree, is in top 5 or top 10 being the best measurement. Have you the same for actuall winners, or could you extract it. Wins is the bone of contention on this I think. Low men issue is that they are saying they cannot win now. They dont seem consoled (reasonably in my view) with the fact that they are outweighing higher men in the frequency of top 10s. Finishing 8th is not really why we compete.

I no longer have the processed RAW data to hand (I have pdf copies of the comp results but the excel data extracted from them has long gone.) but this is a screenshot I found of the summary.

2020 is a difficult year to assess and make conclusions from as covid disrupted so much and resulted in a reduced competition schedule with many comps displaced from their original dates. As might be expected though....the 8-14 group has been largely unaffected and to a lesser extant the 15-21 group have also not seen significant variation over the years.

From the rest of the data, yes it is clear that the average handicap of winners has gone up by about 5 or 6....though there has been no noticeable change in actual winning scores, or general scoring across the board for that matter. Neither has there been a raft of huge scores like some clubs seem to be experiencing...certainly no more than pre WHS.

I actually have retrospective data from 2018 that, if I get the time one day, I might process, so I have another year of pre-WHS data. I might see if I can determine back from the pdf's the percentage of comps won each year by folks in the various handicap groups....just to see if the low men are actually winning significantly less than they were previously.

 

[clubchamp98]

Interesting analysis.
Acknowledging its limited data, but still. Its what we need more of.
I would read three things from it :

- the change seems to have happened in one jump. 2019 to 2020. After that, there is only natural variation I think, and the proportions for each category are in the margin of error.

- the only cat that changed is Cat 5. Their showing significantly improved. Whether that is out of or in proportion to their participation we cannot see from this data. It might look over represented.

- the spectrum of the below 28 categories hasnt really changed. Which I think was a goal of WHS, so this at least indicates that they have succeeded on that point.

Where I would disagree, is in top 5 or top 10 being the best measurement. Have you the same for actuall winners, or could you extract it. Wins is the bone of contention on this I think. Low men issue is that they are saying they cannot win now. They dont seem consoled (reasonably in my view) with the fact that they are outweighing higher men in the frequency of top 10s. Finishing 8th is not really why we compete.

Exactly.
When’s the last time anyone asked you “ if you finished in the top eight”?

Competition Golf is about winning !

 

[rulie]

Exactly.
When’s the last time anyone asked you “ if you finished in the top eight”?

Competition Golf is about winning !

Define "winning". Some players would consider finishing in the top 10 as a "win".

 

[Voyager EMH]

Define "winning". Some players would consider finishing in the top 10 as a "win".

Beating my 8th best score is a win.
It is to me and no one can take that away from me.

 

[clubchamp98]

Define "winning". Some players would consider finishing in the top 10 as a "win".

Do you really need the word winning to be defined.?

Maybe that’s part of the problem in this everyone gets a medal mentality just for competing.

There’s only one winner !

 

[rulie]

Do you really need the word winning to be defined.?

Maybe that’s part of the problem in this everyone gets a medal mentality just for competing.

There’s only one winner !

And the rest of the field are "losers"?

 

[nickjdavis]

Exactly.
When’s the last time anyone asked you “ if you finished in the top eight”?

Competition Golf is about winning !

I agree....however if you accept that one of the many higher handicappers in a comp is statistically more likely to have his day in the sun, then simply looking at who has won competitions is not the best indicator of whether a handicapping system is generally "balanced" (note that I did not say "fair" )

I'm not sure that we will ever be able to eradicate these single spurious scores from occurring, unless you introduce some sort of swingeing restriction on higher handicaps such as maybe an 80% playing handicap.

 

[PaulMdj]

Exactly.
When’s the last time anyone asked you “ if you finished in the top eight”?

Competition Golf is about winning !

When was the last you expected to win?

 

[wjemather]

Do you really need the word winning to be defined.?

Maybe that’s part of the problem in this everyone gets a medal mentality just for competing.

There’s only one winner !

Yes. Lowest gross.

 

[clubchamp98]

Yes. Lowest gross.

Yes I agree.

 

[clubchamp98]

When was the last you expected to win?

A while ago now.
I’ve never expected to win just wanted a chance if I played well.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

And the rest of the field are "losers"?

If they don’t win then by definition they have lost

Define "winning". Some players would consider finishing in the top 10 as a "win".

Surely it’s very easy to define winning

You “win” the competition you enter by registering the lowest score ( if medal play ) or highest score ( if Stableford) or you win the match against an opponent ( if Matchplay )


Coming in the top 10 is not winning

 

[clubchamp98]

And the rest of the field are "losers"?

Well yes !
What do you think they are.