Texas Scramble Allowances

[williamalex1]

Just noticed that my club has just imposed a maximum team H/C of 9 in the seniors open 3 man Texas scramble comp tomorrow.
I'm not too amused that we lose 3 strokes , why ?. H/Cs are 17, 20.1 and 21.9. We were of 12 now we're of 9
I thought handicaps were mandatory , is it allowed to set a maximum h/c in a T/ scramble

 

[wjemather]

If it is just a fun day out, ‘not really golf’ and impossible to handicap fairly and by the look of this thread quite divisive, why on earth do CONGU make the allowances mandatory, why not just a recommendation or a guide?

It's probably worth remembering that CONGU made all their handicap allowance recommendations in UHS mandatory in 2008. As such, making the WHS recommendations mandatory is simply a continuation of this pre-existing CONGU policy. The fact that WHS includes recommendations for scrambles (and UHS did not) is incidental.

 

[williamalex1]

It's probably worth remembering that CONGU made all their handicap allowance recommendations in UHS mandatory in 2008. As such, making the WHS recommendations mandatory is simply a continuation of this pre-existing CONGU policy. The fact that WHS includes recommendations for scrambles (and UHS did not) is incidental.

Can a club set a maximum team H/C in scrambles [ Scotland ] ???

 

[wjemather]

Can a club set a maximum team H/C in scrambles [ Scotland ]

Yes, they can. CONGU's guidance does not legislate against setting handicap limits. There is even guidance as to what methods to use when doing so. However, setting handicap limits is generally advised against, especially if you are allowing entries above such a limit because it always discriminates against higher handicappers. In addition, imposing a limit after entries have already been received is bad, but doing it at a very late stage (as you describe in #201) is outrageous.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

No offence intended but the rest of the forum is full of threads which descend into petty squabbling and personal attacks etc. The Rules forum has always been relatively free of those sorts of posts so it would be good to keep it that way.

So by all means disagree and debate but it would be good to keep it sensible and adult and not descend to childish attacks etc.

Totally agree, I did have him blocked but there was a number of replies that made no sense because I wasn't seeing that the replies were. I'll re-block

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Just noticed that my club has just imposed a maximum team H/C of 9 in the seniors open 3 man Texas scramble comp tomorrow.
I'm not too amused that we lose 3 strokes , why ?. H/Cs are 17, 20.1 and 21.9. We were of 12 now we're of 9
I thought handicaps were mandatory , is it allowed to set a maximum h/c in a T/ scramble

I imagine the "why" is due to what we're all seeing, the mandatory allowances are too high, but that can be somewhat tempered by a maximum handicap. Poor form to change it after entries are in though.

 

[williamalex1]

I imagine the "why" is due to what we're all seeing, the mandatory allowances are too high, but that can be somewhat tempered by a maximum handicap. Poor form to change it after entries are in though.

Poor form indeed, it only affects the higher H/C teams, teams with a handicap of 9 or below are unaffected but everyone above is , typical of the low handicappers that run these comps to suit them. .
At least in the old system everybody was 10%, sometimes a max of max 6 was applied.

 

[rulie]

One could also argue that it's poor form to mandate the handicap allowances for club events (instead of leaving them as recommendations and permitting the club to use them if they wish or modify them if they wish).

 

[wjemather]

I imagine the "why" is due to what we're all seeing, the mandatory allowances are too high, but that can be somewhat tempered by a maximum handicap. Poor form to change it after entries are in though.

Sorry, but that is just not true. Several posts here have described what appear to be equitable results using the new allowances - as all our scrambles have.

Given the equally vociferous complaints about "bandits" in individual, 4bbb, am-am, etc., perhaps the root of the "problem" many are seeing with scrambles is actually the same one - inaccurate indexes rather than bad allowances.

 

[Colin L]

Sorry, but that is just not true. Several posts here have described what appear to be equitable results using the new allowances - as all our scrambles have.

Given the equally vociferous complaints about "bandits" in individual, 4bbb, am-am, etc., perhaps the root of the "problem" many are seeing with scrambles is actually the same one - inaccurate indexes rather than bad allowances.

You also have to factor in the unpredictable nature of golf. There's the team of four bogey players who just all happen have their day in sun at the same time; the outrageous luck/bad luck that can come the way of a team; the players whose handicaps are high because their short game is dreadful but who can contribute above their weight tee to green (yup - looking in the mirror with that one). The stroke difference between the high handicapper's occasional brilliant day when everything for a change just goes right and his normal day is much greater than a low handicapper will vary by. There is a 10 stroke difference between my best score of the season and my usual. The difference for one of our top players (HCI+1.2) is 4 strokes.

 

[badgergm]

One could also argue that it's poor form to mandate the handicap allowances for club events (instead of leaving them as recommendations and permitting the club to use them if they wish or modify them if they wish).

Am I right in saying that the Scramble handicaps are rounded? We had a scramble recently and we ended up with handicaps to 1 decimal place.

 

[Swango1980]

You also have to factor in the unpredictable nature of golf. There's the team of four bogey players who just all happen have their day in sun at the same time; the outrageous luck/bad luck that can come the way of a team; the players whose handicaps are high because their short game is dreadful but who can contribute above their weight tee to green (yup - looking in the mirror with that one). The stroke difference between the high handicapper's occasional brilliant day when everything for a change just goes right and his normal day is much greater than a low handicapper will vary by. There is a 10 stroke difference between my best score of the season and my usual. The difference for one of our top players (HCI+1.2) is 4 strokes.

Does this statement not support the fact a team of bogey golfers on a brilliant day is unbeatable by a team of low handicappers? If this was the case, are the WHS handicaps really fit for purpose?

If official handicaps are awarded to scramble teams, then this is the very situation those handicaps should account for. At any rate, in a scramble event, the real advantage is not so much about 1 or more players having a brilliant day, albeit it helps. In a 4 ball team you'd usually expect 1 in 4 to hit a playable shot, and you've a 1 in 4 chance of one player hitting a better than average shot. In fact, having all 4 players having their day in the sun isn't really a huge advantage. You can only use 1 shot out of 4, so makes mo difference, for eg, if 1 player holes a chip.or putt, or they all do. Again, it helps when all players play well, but that really applies to any team regardless of handicap.

The key advantage is being able to ignore any horror shots. These lead to the car crash scores, particularly the high handicappers, so they benefit the most by effectively getting these cancelled. Again, that is fine. The argument still seems to apply, WHS may be giving these higher handicap teams too high a handicap. In fact, even if some individuals on these teams were bandits, that should be refined somewhat within the team handicap. So, you'd have to see serious cheating bandits to end up with such a high team handicap. And, assuming most golfers have integrity, their score would smash the entire field. This was not the case in the open I played in, or the one my friend played in the day before. There were lots of crazy low scores.

Just looking at results from the one I played in, the average player Index for top 5 teams was 22.2, 18.1, 21.1, 13.4 and 16.3. The average player Index for the last 5 teams was 7.1, 8.5, 8.1, 14.0 and 10.8.

There was a team of handicappers ranging from 2.4 to 6.4 who shot a 59 (13 under gross). Their nett score was closer to last place than 1st place. Yes, it is only one event, but it certainly can't be used to dismiss any concerns people have that WHS is doing it wrong.

 

[Colin L]

Does this statement not support the fact a team of bogey golfers on a brilliant day is unbeatable by a team of low handicappers? If this was the case, are the WHS handicaps really fit for purpose?

Such a team on its brilliant day is likely to be unbeatable by any other team whatever its composition - low handicappers, bogey players, high handicappers or a mixture. Should we single out and perceive some unfairness in one particularly group being beaten on the day? It's the nature of golf and is evident in all formats. But I can't see how any handicapping system can accommodate these factors, based as it has to be on the norm of an individual's scoring over a period of time. The scramble allowances now appear to have something built into them that the percentage of an aggregate didn't have, and that's the gradation of allowances from the lowest handicapper contributing the highest percentage of their course handicap to the highest contributing the smallest percentage. How effective is that? I don't know. It seems to me a "watch this space" matter.

.

 

[D-S]

I think this line from Swango sums it up for me - “Does this statement not support the fact a team of bogey golfers on a brilliant day is unbeatable by a team of low handicappers? If this was the case, are the WHS handicaps really fit for purpose?”
As I have quoted the scramble I played in was won by mid teen handicappers with a score of 47 on a course with a rating of 71.6. So ignoring par a team of scratch golfers would have needed to shoot 25 below the course rating to win - now that is an impossible task.

 

[Swango1980]

Such a team on its brilliant day is likely to be unbeatable by any other team whatever its composition - low handicappers, bogey players, high handicappers or a mixture. Should we single out and perceive some unfairness in one particularly group being beaten on the day? It's the nature of golf and is evident in all formats. But I can't see how any handicapping system can accommodate these factors, based as it has to be on the norm of an individual's scoring over a period of time. The scramble allowances now appear to have something built into them that the percentage of an aggregate didn't have, and that's the gradation of allowances from the lowest handicapper contributing the highest percentage of their course handicap to the highest contributing the smallest percentage. How effective is that? I don't know. It seems to me a "watch this space" matter.

.

Two points.

1. Such a team on a brilliant day SHOULD be beatable by any other team if they also have a brilliant day. Both teams should theoretically be competitive. Whereas, I think we are seeing that a composition of low handicappers have next to zero chance. In fact, I would go as far as say a team of scratch golfers on an extremely good day have next to zero chance against a team of high handicappers on a reasonable day. I'd be interested to keep investigating, as there may be an advantage on having 1 low player in the team to score virtually all the scoring shots, then 3 high handicappers purely for their handicap and little to do with golf. If the low player has a good day, they are laughing.
2. Can an handicap system take these factors into account? Well, if it is bold enough to officially award handicaps in Scrambles, then absolutely yes. If it can't, then they should have stayed clear.

Based on the new handicap formats, my own feeling is Scramble has turned into one of the most fun formats to one that is not really worth paying an entry fee for. However, I always enjoy the discussion, watch this space indeed.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Sorry, but that is just not true. Several posts here have described what appear to be equitable results using the new allowances - as all our scrambles have.

Given the equally vociferous complaints about "bandits" in individual, 4bbb, am-am, etc., perhaps the root of the "problem" many are seeing with scrambles is actually the same one - inaccurate indexes rather than bad allowances.

No not several, there's a couple of you talking about club events where you fix the draw so that all teams have a similar mix of handicaps, of course those are going to be equitable, you've created a false sample. We have an internal TS every year, it's not fixed, you roll up with whatever team you want, in that the same scenario we're getting in Opens was repeated, a winning score of -22.something because their lowest handicap was 17.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Am I right in saying that the Scramble handicaps are rounded? We had a scramble recently and we ended up with handicaps to 1 decimal place.

Under WHS (and if you can get the software to work properly) the handicaps are now rounded, traditionally they were to the decimal place.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Based on the new handicap formats, my own feeling is Scramble has turned into one of the most fun formats to one that is not really worth paying an entry fee for. However, I always enjoy the discussion, watch this space indeed.

I wouldn't necessarily go along with one of the best formats, in fact I detest them, an am-am for eg achieves the same thing for the host club, while having a much better format of play, especially if a varying number of scores count on every hole instead of two on every hole. But we'd play a number each year because it was a boys day out, and we're members at different clubs.

However like you, completely put off entering, we've got one that we might play first week in October because we've always done well there, and it closes out the season, but mostly because one of our team still wants to play one.

 

[wjemather]

No not several, there's a couple of you talking about club events where you fix the draw so that all teams have a similar mix of handicaps, of course those are going to be equitable, you've created a false sample. We have an internal TS every year, it's not fixed, you roll up with whatever team you want, in that the same scenario we're getting in Opens was repeated, a winning score of -22.something because their lowest handicap was 17.

Sorry, but wrong again. For example, and as described previously, our teams have ranged from all <4 handicap to all >24 handicap with everything in between. In one event, the lowest and second highest handicap teams finished within a stroke at the top; another was won by a team in the middle with a mix of teams within a couple of strokes. And it's still high handicap teams propping up the field.

 

[Swango1980]

Just having a little comparison of handicaps and scores pre and post WHS. Pre WHS, I'll assume the handicap is a whole number to make it easy and comparable to Post WHS.

Take 3 teams, where:

Team A has handicaps 0, 0, 0, 0
Team B has handicaps 0, 20, 20, 20
Team C has handicaps 20, 20, 20, 20

Imagine Team A gets a gross score of 12 under gross. I think that is a very healthy to good score (depending on the course), but from my own experience over the years I think it is a healthy score. Taking a par of 72, the following scores from all teams would be equivalent to Team A's 12 under:

CONGU (1/10 of combined)

Team A: Handicap = 0, Score = 60 (-12 gross)
Team B: Handicap = 6, Score = 66 (-6 gross)
Team C: Handicap = 8, Score = 68 (-4 gross)

CONGU (1/8 of combined)

Team A: Handicap = 0, Score = 60 (-12 gross)
Team B: Handicap = 8, Score = 68 (-4 gross)
Team C: Handicap = 10, Score = 70 (-2 gross)

WHS (25% / 20% / 15% / 10% from lowest)

Team A: Handicap = 0, Score = 60 (-12 gross)
Team B: Handicap = 9, Score = 69 (-3 gross)
Team C: Handicap = 14, Score = 74 (+2 gross)

So, one thing that is not in doubt is WHS provides much more favourable nett scores for teams made up with higher handicappers. Significantly so. So, the question is, is WHS fair now meaning that pre WHS was massively unfair to higher handicappers? Or, was CONGU fair, and now WHS massively unfair to lower handicappers. Or, somewhere in between, and what extreme of the above to we tend towards?

Certainly, from my own experiences, a score of +2 for any team does not sound that impressive, when most teams are usually at least par if not a few under. A score of 12 under, despite being shot by scratch players, feels a lot more impressive than the 74 by 4 20 handicappers.