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.