Soft Cap

jim8flog

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After yesterday's round I expected my H.I. to go to 11.2 from 10.7 (9 replaced with 13.3, rounded 0.5)
The best of 8 calculations show the maths as 11.25
I only went up to 11.1.

I presume the soft cap has come in to play (low of 8) but cannot find anywhere in the manual that says how the soft cap rise is calculated/limited.

I am presuming that 0.3 of the expected difference of 0.5 takes me to 11 then the soft cap kicks in and the remaining 0.2 has been halved to 0.1.

Does that sound right?
 

wjemather

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Yep. The soft cap limits increases to 50% between 3 and 5 higher than the low index. At 5 higher than the low index, the hard cap then kicks in.

Rule 5.8 (p. 60):
"(i) The soft cap. The soft cap is triggered when the difference between a player’s newly calculated Handicap Index and their Low Handicap Index is greater than 3.0 strokes.​
When a calculated Handicap Index increase is greater than 3.0 strokes, the value above 3.0 strokes is restricted to 50% of the increase."​
 
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jim8flog

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Yep. The soft cap limits increases to 50% between 3 and 5 higher than the low index. At 5 higher than the low index, the hard cap then kicks in.

Rule 5.8 (p. 60):
"(i) The soft cap. The soft cap is triggered when the difference between a player’s newly calculated Handicap Index and their Low Handicap Index is greater than 3.0 strokes.​
When a calculated Handicap Index increase is greater than 3.0 strokes, the value above 3.0 strokes is restricted to 50% of the increase."​

I knew the rules but had not quite realised exactly how it is applied until seeing my H.I this morning. It took quite a bit of thinking about it.

Having read the rules originally I had thought it would be my next increase that would be halved in full.
 

mikejohnchapman

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I knew the rules but had not quite realised exactly how it is applied until seeing my H.I this morning. It took quite a bit of thinking about it.

Having read the rules originally I had thought it would be my next increase that would be halved in full.
Like you I thought the 50% would apply for the next round after you had exceeded the soft cap.

Presumably it works a bit like the old handicap categories which altered at the point you crossed a boundry and proportioned the increase accordingly?
 
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