Personal assesment of handicaps

[Oddsocks]

After a nightmere first hole yesturday it got me thinking, what level of golf do the expect from a certain handicap level.

For example

0-9 - a long hitter that makes few mistakes
or
and average player with a hot short game

12-15 - a below verage golfer that should play to a half decent lever

and so on......

 

[USER1999]

It is hard to bunch ability with handicap, once you get much beyond low end cat 1. I would expect 2 and below to be good golfers, long, accurate, solid short game, can putt, and mentally strong.

After that, any handicap from 3 upwards will have at least one weakness. It could be any of them.

 

[Doh]

There is a big gap between 0 and 9 both will be able to get the ball out there but the lower you go the better the approach shots and putting will be and may be they have better course management.

12 to 15 you will see some inconsistances off the tee and with the rest of the game in general

 

[Imurg]

There's a bloke I used to play with who was also off 8.
He could hit a long straight ball, decent approach but if he missed the green he was buggered.
Me - Crap off the tee, good approach shots, good short game and holed a few putts.

If he could sharpen his short game and I could get the ball off the tee we'd both be off 5!

 

[Fyldewhite]

One word really.... consistency.

I'm a fairly average hitter off 5 and I know many a 12 man who can knock it past me regularly. It just goes wrong too often though. A sweeping generalisation I know but the lower the players handicap, the nearer they tend to get to their best game on a regular basis. When you think about it this isn't surprising as the handicap system itself is built on the same theory.

I don't know many (if any) cat 1 players with a poor short game. Higher up there are very inconsistent drivers who have a cracking short game and very good drivers who have a poor one. Higher than about 12/13 you are getting into territory of generally shorter hitters and inconsistency combined. Higher than 18 and they generally wear a skirt don't they ?

 

[Oddsocks]

its interesting how every one assumes a sub 10 golfer will be long. A guy at our club isnt long by anymeans and is getting on, but from 150 yards in he is stupidly accurate. current h/c is 9.

I got paired with him on october on our sunday roll ups, and although he must have hit hes driver 230/240 max (including roll) on fairways that were still pretty hard, he played our back 9 1 over, and the front nine which he explained was a disaster was only +5, so a disaster round at plus 6.... sounds a nightmere.

Its interesting to see peoples h/c aims in the 2011 goals thread, and these seem pretty standard across the board.

25-28 - looking to get to 20.
low 20's - looking to get to 18
15-18 - looking to get to 12
12-10, looking at single fiqures.
6-9 - looking to get to 5.

 

[Oddsocks]

Higher than 18 and they generally wear a skirt don't they ?

oooooo'errr, theres some big blokes on here with +20 handicaps. are you planning on any forum meets this season... lol

 

[patricks148]

I'm off 9 and I would agree with the comment about constancy. I can play to my handicap most of the time but still have the odd bad hole and I'm not a great putter, though my chipping is pretty good.

Played against a guy in a knockout in the summer who was off 2 or 3 and he had a phenomenal short game. I was driving the ball 50 yards past him on a regular basis, but when he got within 100 yards he always got down in 2 and was never more than 10 feet away from the pin.

 

[Tiger]

Higher than 18 and they generally wear a skirt don't they ?

oooooo'errr, theres some big blokes on here with +20 handicaps. are you planning on any forum meets this season... lol

Oh deary, deary me and I used to hold you in such high regard FW. What's even more pleasing is that once I get sub 18 I become an inconsistent, short hitter! Mouth opened, bit inserted, teeth clenched!

 

[User 105]

12-15 - a below average golfer that should play to a half decent level

Below average ? Considering something like only 5% of golfers break 100, 12-15, I would think, would be well above average.

I tend to agree with others though it is consistency, but of your bad rounds.

Last year I noticed as my handicap came down my bad rounds were maybe 1-2 shots off my handicap at worst. But if I hooked things up then my best rounds could be 4-6 shots under.

I also noticed that it wasn't always the same part of my game that was weak when I had a bad round. Some days my driving was off, some days it was my putting.

So for me it's consistency across the board that makes a low single figure golfer.

 

[Oddsocks]

i suppose westy, yesterday was a very up and down medal round starting off with a tripple bogey on our first, but in chalenging conditions and with 1 ball lost ( 3 off the tee obvioulsy) in our monthly medal i shot 86/net 71, par for our round is 68 although SSS wasnt confirmed when we tee'd off yesterday as i think there may have been adjustments.

A good card was ruined by the tripple and a couple of doubles mid round, but a bad round within the buffer isnt really that bad i suppose.

The reason i poosted this was yesterday our group consisted of a 13, 14, 15 & 17 h/c players.

13h/c - Was pretty solid to be honest, with most of he's bad holes coming from he's long game, approximate age 65/70

14h/c - was early 30's with an awesome short game, but was often wild off the tee.

15 h/c (me), lost most of my shots missing greens in reg and having to play and additional chip shot.

17 h/c - was pretty solid but noticed he would give up and lose interest on bad holes.


now playing off 15 my first went as follows:

drive up our 18th,
virtually shanked my 2nd further up our 18th,
wedge back to the 1st,
6i up short of the green,
chip to a frozen green about 20ft from the pin
3 putts

the guys in my group must have thought "yeah right, 15h/c my arse"

what i noticed is the younger mid capper golfers seem to lose their shots from being wild off the tee, yet the older mid cappers tend to lose their shots in distance.

 

[User 105]

Sounds a lot like how my rounds go. It's usually a couple of holes with a double or triple from absolutely nowhere that costs me.

The thing that struck me last year was once you get below 18 it's no more bogey golf. You need to start toting up pars.

As I know most of my rounds will have a double or worse in them somewhere. Playing off 13 means I need to counteract that with more pars and some birdies.

I found once I dropped past 18 it was more a mindset thing about doubles being a real killer for my game.

 

[jammydodger]

Usually for me there's one thing that will make my round good or leave it average. Thats how many birdies I get. I'm what you would call a consistent player off my h/c and very rarely miss out on buffer and if i do it's only by a stroke or two.

however if i'm to have a good round and score well it will always involve at least 3 or 4 birdies. You wont see me go round with 15 pars and 3 bogies.

Take the other day for example , I played my first round for 7 weeks and shot 5 over par. this included 2 bogies , 3 birdies and consequetive double bogies on the 12th,13th and 14th. that's me all over tbh

I'm a solid player in all aspects of the game but I dont excel at any of them tbh

 

[Fyldewhite]

Higher than 18 and they generally wear a skirt don't they ?

oooooo'errr, theres some big blokes on here with +20 handicaps. are you planning on any forum meets this season... lol

I believe "Evans" caters for the fuller figure

 

[SatchFan]

Consistent quality ball striking is what I always notice if playing with a really low-handicapper (eg 4 or less). No complete duff shots. It's a bit like they've gone through some sort of barrier. Other guys, myself included, could run up some good scores but there is always the threat of that occasional 20 yard hack to bring us crashing back to earth again.

 

[feary]

Someone who just got his European tour card who drives the ball 240. And someone at our our club who drives the ball ball 210- 220 max and he's off 1.

 

[Robobum]

You just have the ability to make less mistakes as you get lower and, if you do make one, you have the knowledge, thought process and ability not to compound it with further errors.

Ball striking has absolutely zip to do with it. I know plenty of rubbish ball strikers who get it round in low numbers and not because they have dazzling short games either. They just do everything efficiently and make very few errors.

 

[Region3]

I don't think you can go from high to low by steadily improving each part of your game at the same rate, so as others have said, pretty much any level of handicap will have parts of their game that are worse than others.

Even at pro level, different players have different weaknesses and could still knock shots off by improving different areas.

Assessing my own handicap, my long game is a million miles better than my short game (and that's being kind to my short game!). Since the short game is where most shots can be made up I'm still hopeful of going lots lower.

 

[goldenbare]

Higher than 18 and they generally wear a skirt don't they ?

oooooo'errr, theres some big blokes on here with +20 handicaps. are you planning on any forum meets this season... lol

Oh deary, deary me and I used to hold you in such high regard FW. What's even more pleasing is that once I get sub 18 I become an inconsistent, short hitter! Mouth opened, bit inserted, teeth clenched!

I'm keeping my head down after this comment but perhaps some of the big hitting high handicappers should try hitting a 4 iron off the tee and play the rest of the hole on the fairway. Give it a try chaps

 

[HomerJSimpson]

It comes down to that old word again - consistancy. I know some great 20+ handicappers with great ball striking ability and very good short games. The problem is they don't know where the next shot is going especially off the tee.

Mid handicappers (18-10) I guess have the ability to shoot low but again usually have one real weakness in their games that usually manifests itself in competitions. If they keep the demons locked up they can go low. If not the buffer can seem a long way off.

The lower guys (9 and down) are usally good ball strikers and able to scramble pretty well on the days the irons miss the greens. Get a hot putting day too and they can make level par easily. Arguably the most frustrating category as any good performances aren't rewarded with huge handicap cuts and it takes time patience and belief to get to cat 1 in particular