UK Handicapping system

[rosecott]

The only person who knows whether his h/cap is correct or not is the player him/herself and if they feel it's too high, CUT THEM.

Another Fifer here challenging Bob’s views on self-assessment handicaps. (I have corrected your quote – it’s bad enough shouting, but shouting in colour! – really)
You don’t have to spend too much time on the forum to realise that there are many, many golfers who seek “vanity” handicaps rather than handicaps based on competition with their peers. If you look at the websites that offer handicap tracking and “unofficial” handicap certificates, you also realise that it is pretty widespread.
To suggest that players like the OP, and others with the same views on handicaps, should be able to set their own handicaps on the basis that it harms no-one else is false. The suggestion that their “vanity” handicap will be found out and eventually rise to the correct level is clearly correct, assuming they enter a reasonable number of qualifiers. While this upward correction process is taking place, the effect on the handicaps of players whose handicaps are administered in the “correct” way has to be considered.
Let’s say a club’s qualifiers have an average of 100 entrants with, say, 60% in Categories 1, 2, and 3. If there were 10 “vanity” handicapped players out of those 60 who would be unable to play into their Buffer Zone, this would have the very significant effect of continually increasing CSS over SSS. Thus the bar is raised for those with “correct” handicaps leading to their handicaps also being increased, unjustifiably.
We all know that CONGU handicapping is not perfect – no system could be, but it’s the best we have or are likely to have. To suggest that players should be allowed to ignore the rules of the system by deciding that they know better is nonsense and would lead to the system becoming even more imperfect.

 

[bobmac]

Rosecott, your whole reply is based on people having so-called vanity h/caps they cant play to in comps which affect the other competitors and their buffer zones.
Is that correct?
If so, I agree, but...
The op can't play in qualifiers. The reasons dont matter, illness, work, no transport, no friends, nobody will play with him off 13 etc etc so no affect on other members buffer zones there
And it's not a vanity h/cap if he plays over 20 rounds and has calculated he should be off 9.8.

So if he can clearly play to the lower h/cap and it doent affect anyone else, I ask in black this time, why not cut him?

 

[USER1999]

What sort of system would it be if you could just nominate your own handicap?

I fancy 5 this week, as I like the sound of a cat 1 h/cap, but next week 25 might be nice as there is a board comp. You can't choose a handicap.

 

[USER1999]

Playing in a comp (or putting in a supplementary card by prior arrangement) puts pressures on your game that are simply not there in bounce games, or society ones. Your handicap is medals tees, name in the book. If you never compete in comps, you don't know what your handicap is. The op may find that he is useless at it, and in fact should be off 20.

I do not believe in getting cut in casual play.

 

[bobmac]

Playing in a comp (or putting in a supplementary card by prior arrangement) puts pressures on your game that are simply not there in bounce games, or society ones. Your handicap is medals tees, name in the book. If you never compete in comps, you don't know what your handicap is. The op may find that he is useless at it, and in fact should be off 20.

I do not believe in getting cut in casual play.

I agree murph, you cant just pick a handicap and his play might be different in medals off the white tees compared to bounce games, but

He doesnt play medals......

 

[BTatHome]

^^ Fully agree with murph ^^

Stick a medal card in your pocket and play to the 9.8

If you don't/can't play qualifiers then surely you don't have a club handicap In which case your society handicap is your handicap.

 

[rosecott]

Rosecott, your whole reply is based on people having so-called vanity h/caps they cant play to in comps which affect the other competitors and their buffer zones.
Is that correct?
If so, I agree, but...
The op can't play in qualifiers. The reasons dont matter, illness, work, no transport, no friends, nobody will play with him off 13 etc etc so no affect on other members buffer zones there
And it's not a vanity h/cap if he plays over 20 rounds and has calculated he should be off 9.8.

So if he can clearly play to the lower h/cap and it doent affect anyone else, I ask in black this time, why not cut him?

Bob

Not can't play qualifiers, chooses rather to play society golf. As to it not being a vanity handicap, why does he not play off 9.8 in his society golf and, if and when he chooses to play in qualifiers off 12.5, he will clean up and get the cut he wants. If he can play to 9.8 on the many different course he plays with his society, he should be able to play to at least that on his home course.
No necessity to cut his handicap, he can do what he likes with his society.

 

[bobmac]

if and when he chooses to play in qualifiers off 12.5, he will clean up and get the cut he wants.

Forget the other members buffer zones being affected then, you'd rather let him keep his false h/cap and let him clean up.?


Is that what Congu would prefer?
Perish the thought people winning comps with silly scores....

BTW, if he is only 3 under his h/cap, I doubt he'd clean up anywhere. He might get top 10 in most club comps these days.

 

[MadAdey]

I think that is his problem if he thinks he should be playing from a lower handicap. Like has already been said if he has not been playing in qualifying competitions does that not make his official handicap invalid now? Not sure what the ruling is on this but I thought to keep your handicap you had to play in qualifying competitions now to stop people protecting falsely high handicaps.

 

[rosecott]

If he can genuinely play to 9.8, wishes that to be his official handicap and does not want to be accused of being a bandit on too high a handicap, there is a solution.
He can enter 10 on the scorecard when he next plays a qualifier or supplementary and keep doing that until his handicap is 10. That way he gets to where he thinks he should be without taking prize money from other players by playing off too high a handicap.

 

[White Feather]

There seems to be a rather mixed reaction to the subject of the handicapping system. Personally having played golf for about 50 years I find the changes which were made 30 years ago not only confound my intelligence but have been the worst thing for the game I could have imagined.

We have arrived at rather a farcical position with winning scores in most competitions being up to 8 or more shots below S.S.S. or up to 45-46 points Stableford. This is rather like handicapping horses in a flat race to arrive at the finishing post 2 furlongs from home. What is the point of having a C.S.S. which is regularly beaten by a significant proportion of the entrants?
The whole ethos of the game has moved away from decades ago when the pride of performance was what golfers aspired to in even playing to their handicaps never mind beating them. Nowadays, it's all about what prizes people can win and for many, how to keep an upwardly mobile handicap. Because the new system takes little account of "general standard of play" and clubs in the main seem unwilling to apply Rule 19, "managing" a handicap is relatively easy. Hardly anyone brings a competition-winning card back to their home club for entry into the computer.

I can understand that 30 years ago, the authorities of our game were experiencing difficulties in sorting out truly excellent golfers from the very good in Category 1. County events were over-subscribed and a better way was needed to assess these golfers. All that was needed was to apply the present method of handicap adjustment to players but only with a handicap of 5 or less. In effect, they have to play to their handicaps every 2-3 competitions to keep their standing.

Match-play is now even more of a joke now that full handicap difference is applied to matches. Much is made of levelling the playing field so that players of all standards can compete equally but the fact is that Category 3 and 4 golfers usually concentrate their good golf over about 12-14 holes with the rest of their scores being somewhat less successful. This is why 30 years ago, a handicap committee would assess a player's abilities by looking at his best 15 holes rather than the total Stableford score and the reason why taking 3/4 of the difference is fairer.

I should like to comment on the mathematics of the present system and its failings,

Competition Standard Scratch

Mathematically, the present method of determining C.S.S. was fatally flawed from day 1. It is determined for each competition by how well players score against Standard Scratch. Amazingly, their performances then determine C.S.S. for that day. Over a very long period of time I have noticed that C.S.S. hardly varies whatever the weather and whatever time of the year it is! This is because there are always so many people playing in competitions with totally false handicaps. This would have been impossible 30 years ago because firstly, one was handicapped to one's best performance and not by a computer which will cut a Category 3 player by only 2 or 3 shots for beating C.S.S by 10 shots. Secondly, the club professional would have checked the wind speed and direction each day and also looked at general course conditions before judging from experience what the C.S.S. would be and have writen it on the notice board.
As a scientist, the present system demonstrates an incredible failure to even understand the basic mathematics. In Hi-Fi terms it resembles a sound loop where the sound is picked up by a microphone which then feeds it into the loudspeakers which broadcast the magified sound to the microphone again until everyone is screaming with pain. Another thing changed radically for the worse in 1981. The calculation of C.S.S. started being done by computers fed with phoney information as described above. I examined in detail some years ago the difference in the average score of all of the professionals playing in major European competitions. The wind needed to vary only slightly up or down to cause a daily difference in the average score of + or - 1.5 strokes. Nowadays, we can play on our seaside couse in a 50 m.p.h. wind and it makes hardly any difference at all to C.S.S. Unless players scores are judged against an outside arbitrary standard, how can their performance possibly be determined?

The first way to put a stop to this loop and also to end the criticism of how difficulty of courses is not fairly judged is as follows: a local panel of professional golfers should first assess the S.S.S. for each course in their county. The basis of their assessment should start with the normal CONGU calculation which takes into account course length and some other determining factors. Applied to this figure would be the comparative adjustment thought necessary for that course which would be based on the local knowledge gained by the professionals who are likely to have played at most golf clubs in their county. Terrain, gradient, rough and narrowness of fairways would all of course, contribute to their reckoning. Undeniably, there are significant variations in difficulty of courses with similar S.S.S.'s which is not taken into account using the present method. This will give each course a more relevant S.S.S. rating relative to other courses based on an independent assessment.

Each competition day the club professional would, if he deemed it necessary, then apply an upwards correction from 1 to 4 shots depending on wind strength and direction and other inclement weather variables. I think everyone knows that apart from the difference in degree of difficulty from course to course that the vagaries of our weather could easily add 4 shots to the C.S.S. Naturally, each club professional would work to the same formula in arriving at the local variation due to weather conditions.

Handicap Adjustments

Having set up an independent assessment of the C.S.S. which then acts as a true standard in assessing performance, it remains only to apply handicap corrections more according to achievements or lack of them than is presently apparent. At present, there is no possibility that cuts in handicaps ever keep up with actual results achieved. A fast achiever can win everything going for a year or two since his handicap rate of change can never keep up with his rate of improvement. I would suggest a better way to do this is to cut every player in categories 2,3 and 4 by half the amount by which he beats C.S.S. interpreted either as a net score or Stableford point score. Additionally, the computer programme can make increases in handicaps every 6 months according to the number of times he has played and how near he has come to his buffer zone. It goes without saying that more attention should be paid to players' performances in team events and K.O. matches. Perhaps cards should be recorded for these events too! As I suggested above category 1 can remain as it is since it meets objectives.

If adopted as a basis for change, these suggestions, in time would result in:

• Preventing false handicaps resulting in ridiculous scores or matchplay results by bringing winning scores more in line with the daily adjusted C.S.S. of the course being played
• Golfers who play badly for a period will still avoid becoming trapped on an artificially low handicap
• Bandits will not necessarily be able to increase their handicaps by several shots during the winter and go on to win everything during the summer!

I put these thoughts to some of the most senior figures in the EGU about 4 years ago. They were treated with disdain and the sort of bureaucratic indifference which is now disillusioning anyone who wants to compete on a level playing field. I was told I didn't know what I was talking aboutand I told them that the controlling body of English golf needed more statisticians and mathematicians and less confessed experts who cannot take criticism!
I have now decided that so much enjoyment has been taken from the game by removing proper competition achieved through correct handicapping and surveillance that I can't take anymore. I'm still under 10 handicap and 78 years old but I don't like being unable to compete. Some of my low handicap friends go back home when they arrive to play in a competition and find they would need to shoot 4 under gross to stand a chance. Even McIlroy couldn't compete with one bandit I know - he won a singles matchplay recently and had the equivalent of 32 points after 10 holes!

 

[wull]

you must of copied and pasted that from somewhere else surely,that's a novel in itself.

 

[Fyldewhite]

Strange how when golfers are asked what is so good about the game one of the most popular replies is the the handicapping system !!

Never read as much bitter drivel as that long post above by the way. I've been off single figures for years and won plenty. If your club handicaps are such that you don't feel you can win then look carefully at how the committee are administering the system and structuring the competitions. That will be where things are falling down, not the system itself which is fine.

Oh, and one other point.... Full difference in matchplay...... Our club knockout was again contested by two Cat 1 golfers this year. Since the rules changed the highest handicapper to get to the final has been 13....and he lost.

 

[sev112]

Thanks to those that pointed out my error in CSS -2 shots above; i had to recheck it in relation to the comp when i thought that had been the case, and yep of course you are right

 

[MadAdey]

Why do people spend all their time moaning about golf. I play it because I love it. No handicap system will ever be perfect. But hey at least it gives people of a lower standard a chance against better players. I tell you what....... go down your local Tennis club and play the club champion, you would not have a hope in hell of maybe getting a point from him let alone winning. At least with golf you do, that is what makes this game loved by so many.

 

[rosecott]

Never read as much bitter drivel as that long post above by the way.

Have to agree and I'm not far off his vintage but my handicap is much higher than his. I have done a quick trawl through our qualifiers this year and they were predominantly won by scores in the range of +2 to -3 nett differential. The two best scores were both -7 and were achieved by an 18 handicap who had already played in a huge number of qualifiers this year (started 19, finished 17) and a 7 handicap playing in only his third comp of the year in November.
As to CONGU/EGU needing statisticians/mathematicians, one of the anti-CONGU arguments is that they make too much use of statistics.
If what he describes is a true reflection of what goes on at his club, then I cannot believe that their administration of handicaps conforms to the CONGU UHS compliance checklist. If the system is properly applied, there is little room for players to exploit the system to their advantage.
Call me cynical, but I suspect the poster has copied and pasted from one of his many letters to the EGU.
Also - is it just me, or is it a little strange for someone to produce such a lengthy tome for his first ever post? (well strictly speaking not his first as his first was exactly the same posting on another thread he started).

 

[Basher]

Yawn!!!

What's for tea?

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Surely the question has to be does the OP put 3 cards in per rolling year to keep an active handicap. Assuming he does, why isn't he playing to it when he puts them in but can do so with apparent ease in a society jolly.

 

[LCVreg]

Rosecott, your whole reply is based on people having so-called vanity h/caps they cant play to in comps which affect the other competitors and their buffer zones.
Is that correct?
If so, I agree, but...
The op can't play in qualifiers. The reasons dont matter, illness, work, no transport, no friends, nobody will play with him off 13 etc etc so no affect on other members buffer zones there
And it's not a vanity h/cap if he plays over 20 rounds and has calculated he should be off 9.8.

So if he can clearly play to the lower h/cap and it doent affect anyone else, I ask in black this time, why not cut him?

Cos the wretched Congu says that it is not possible!

 

[BTatHome]

Cos the wretched Congu says that it is not possible!

If you don't play in club comps then why do you care though? Your society handicap is handled by your society and by your own admission thats what you play to and that the golf you play too.

If you want to play to 9.8 at your club (which you don't play at) then stick 10 on the card and play to it.