What Laws Would You Change?!

lads, our prizes are all a bit of fun. the main aim for everyone is to get as low as possible handicap wise. people collect a few prizes on there way down. whether you win a comp, come 2nd or 3rd can be a bit of a lotto. i shot my personal best last year two comps running. 6over. i came second with one and not even top 5 after although. i had shot well below my handcap both times but didnt even win.
 
Imurg said:
But even then there's a huge gulf between a 9.4'er and a 0.6'er but you'd have them playing Scratch..
Same gulf between a 9.6 and a 17.4.
To play those of equal ability you'd have to have 9 divisions all the way from scratch to 28 with a maximum of 2 shots covering each division.
And, not being disrespectful to 28'ers but there can be huge gulf between 28 and 27....
What's fair about a 9.4 taking on a 0.6 Scratch...?
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I agree ... I just wanted to see if you would take over the mantle of explaination and see if you'd point out that a 9 shot gap is still huge... which you did.

However for each group (division) none of them should therefore have any issue playing of 3/4..... should they?

I think it's going off topic, but in context of the original question I'd like to see the h/cap system changed, even if it DOES slightly favour the guy who stands on the practice ground.
 
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In the words of Max Bygraves "let me tell you a story"....

I used to play cricket. I was quite good. I've played with the Butcher brothers and I've played against Dean Headley amongst others. I know what I'm doing but I was nowhere near good enough to turn pro.
I've told you this so that you can get an idea of the standard that I played at.
We were a tidy team in a tidy division.
We then got Shoaib Akhtar's wicketkeeper in our team. This geezer was a cut above! He didn't want to keep wicket for us, he wanted to bat and bowl. EVERY game he got a double ton and took 5+ wickets. It was great to start with as we steamrollered teams. Then, no one wanted to play us as they were supposed to be enjoying their cricket on a Saturday afternoon and instead they were simply chasing leather. They knew that they'd never get him out and they knew that he'd bowl them out. It made that summer a very poor one for both our oppo and us as there was no real competition.
This analogy can be applied to golf if there's no handicap system. I play off 7. If I'm giving those shots away to our lad off scratch then nine times out of ten I'm going to lose - possibly more. Eventually my enthusiasm will wain.

Or - and I think this is the point you're aiming at - I'd find players of a similar ability and play with/against them. BUT, golf clubs would become VERY cliquey as the members would find the players of their own ability and stick with them and not let anyone else in.

I like the handicap system as, in my opinion, it keeps everyone competitive regardless of age or sex.
 
JustOne said:
I agree ... I just wanted to see if you would take over the mantle of explaination and see if you'd point out that a 9 shot gap is still huge... which you did.

However for each group (division) none of them should therefore have any issue playing of 3/4..... should they?
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Well OK but why 3/4 ???

Why not 5/8ths or 12/10ths....?

A handicap's a handicap - if everyone moves the same %age then fine but can't see the point....just play off the handicap given.....
 
Not so sure cricket analogy is fair. When you play a team sport like cricket, football, rugby, the quality of the opposition can make or ruin the game. Golf is an individual sport, and I play for for my own enjoyment, and to try and get better. I don't have to be in a competition to enjoy the game, and if I play with some one off scratch and lose but play well, I enjoy that more than playing against a 24 handicapper, playing badly and winning. It is about personal performance.

When I was a nipper, I played in the Club Championship off scratch, and shot my best ever rounds at the time, two 76's. Came 4th and to me the best result I have ever had. Didn't think about shot holes, just played the course, and attacked everything, rather than playing for my handicap.
 
bluewolf said:
Whilst I can see the logic in your argument, I would like to point out that The sports you have mentioned all have divisions that group people of similar abilities together. Things like Triathlons, and especially Ironman also have the cache of competing, and finishing as a goal. Completing a round of golf is not an endurance event, nor is it something particularly difficult to do. If every town had 20/30 golf courses then you could group players of matched abilities together. All the Cat 1's could play together on one course. All the Cat 2's on another etc etc. (Un)fortunately, the number of courses is limited and therefore ways have to be found to group all the players together.
The H'capping system does this. If I get beat by a 24 H'capper, then I accept that someone of lesser (apologies for the term) ability has had a better day than me. Personally, I can think of nothing worse than playing every comp against a group of over serious Cat 1 golfers. Give me a mixed group every time..
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There are differences between the sports. But you can't defend the handicap on the different goals. Goals are milestones that individuals set and try to achieve. A newcomer to iron man might well set a goal of finishing the event. A newcomer to golf might set the goal of breaking 100. The sense of achievement, satisfaction and enjoyment from reaching these goals will be similar because the difficulty of achieving them is similar. Finishing an iron man might be harder to do than finishing around of golf. But finishing a round of golf is not a reasonable goal for most people to set themselves. I personally don't see any logic in the argument that the handicap is good for golf because it isn't an endurance event.


I have never been in a golf competition that didn't have enough participants to run it in divisions. It is not necessary to have more courses. All abilities can play the same course together at the same time.


You say your handicap is 11.5. Perhaps you would be competing against laid back happy go lucky 10 to 15 handicap golfers. Do you think you have a reasonable chance of beating a 10 handicapper? Or do you need 2 shots?
 
Imurg said:
So why do we have a handicapping system at all? What's the point?
Lets just play Scratch against each other and see how long Golf takes to disappear from ordinary life...
I play with a 14 and a 23 handicapper (Big Bro Fragger) most weeks.
Even if I have a bad day I'll beat Fragger on gross score virtually every time. Why? Because I'm better than he is.
If he was going to get beaten every week - that's every - will he bother to pitch up?
I wouldn't.
If I was playing a +3 handicapper every week off scratch it would become pretty boring pretty quickly - I'd be better off going solo.
The Handicapping system is there so that people of all abilities can compete against each other. If people want to play scratch competitions then there are many that will accommodate you.

Quite frankly, what you've written so far suggests you understand very little about golf at club level, between players of differing abilities. These people can't all spend time practicing. Everyone hopes to get better that's a given but very few - even with huge amounts of time, coaching and effort - will get anywhere near scratch or even Cat1.

Other Sports can do what they like, if people want to enter competitions they know they have no chance of winning that's up to them.
We do it our way.
Our way is to provide a means by which anyone, regardless of ability, can win certain competitions.
You don't want that at Elite/Pro level - you want the best to win. But at our level it's important to provide the poorer player with as much chance of winning as the good player off single figures. If you didn't, people really wouldn't play - and if you think they would then I'm afraid you are mistaken.
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It is an interesting post. I played snooker with my big brother every week for about 20 years. I can count on one hand the amount of times he won. This is because I am much better at snooker than he is. I could have given him a 40 shot start and then he could have pretended he could win. Unfortunately he was over 10 and he would know he didn't really win and would get no satisfaction from pretending.


Perhaps we lack imagination in our family and can't ignore the facts?


You say I am mistaken and without the handicap 'people really wouldn't play'. I can't prove you wrong without having the power to scrap the handicap and see what happens. But I can, again, point out the evidence that in other non handicapped sports, people of all abilities compete together on a level playing field. Why do you think golfers are different to people who play other sports?


Golfers aren't lilly livered fantasists who only play golf because it allows them to 'win' regardless of their ability. They are a normal cross section of society who play the game because they enjoy the activity and enjoy the satisfaction of self improvement. The only thing they miss out on is the satisfaction and enjoyment gained from fair competition.
 
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Imurg said:
Well OK but why 3/4 ???

Why not 5/8ths or 12/10ths....?

A handicap's a handicap - if everyone moves the same %age then fine but can't see the point....just play off the handicap given.....
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If it's fine then why the arguement?

The question was which rule you'd like to change.. and that's one I'd like to change. That's all, nothing more. not sure why I'd need to justify it as it's just a personal preference. 3/4 handicaps in comps would give people enough incentive to TRY to improve.... in MY opinion.

We HAVE TO play of the h/caps given so I don't understand the need to emphasise that?
 
HomerJSimpson said:
I agree totally with Imurg. I think this athletics thing in particular is a bit of smoke and mirrors to substantiate the argument. Most athletic events I entered and still watch on TV have some degree of handicapping based on age, certainly at club level and so comparitive to golf from that perspective. It makes perfect sense as a 50 year old athlete simply can't compete with a 18 year old and so why expect him to try.

Its the same in golf. Why should a 24 handicapper be penalised because they are new, can't be asked to practice or get lessons or even because they simply aren't very god, not be given the chance to play on the level playing field their handicap gives them and so can peg it up against a scratch player or pro and theoretically give them a god contest
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They do not have some degree of handicapping! If 50 year olds are competing against each other and 18 year olds are competing against each other then they are in different leagues or divisions.


If what you say makes perfect sense in athletics, why doesn't it make perfect sense in golf?




If there is no handicap allowance then no one is penalising the 24 handicap golfer. He has equal opportunity and is free to play. If you give him 24 shots then you have to ask: why is the scratch golfer penalised?
 
Is my club in the minority then as it runs all the medals and stablefords in divisions already. The only events that aren't are the honours board events where the best player on the day wins which leads me back to the point about it being a level playing field. Taking the club championship out of the equation which is lowest gross over two rounds (there is a nett prize too with handicap) then it means that anyone entering has the same shot of seeing their name in gold letters. Last year Sundance (and Bash) cleaned up as he went from 20 something to 13. He was improving through lessons and playing more and took the low guys to town and the higher guys couldn't live with him even with extra shots. The best golfer on the day won. Isn't that what is suppose to happen in all sports. Team sports are different as you have your colleagues to help and it is a reactionary event where you respond to the ball and the opposition.

It is only individual sports that you can really measure yourself and as I've said before even at club level these are pretty well divisionalised based on age except for golf where we have our handicaps as age isn't so much of an issue. A good old un can still beat good young un if they play well and use their shots wisely
 
Whereditgo said:
Not really a law, but.... Stop giving 0.1's back for no returns, I'm getting sick and fed up of people manipulating their handicap by simply scrubbing 1 hole! :(
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NR'ing 1 hole even in a medal isn't automatically 0.1 back. For handicapping it counts as a nett double bogey even though they're out of the comp.

It's the people that put NR on every hole after they've done it once that want educating.
 
I'm not a member of a club yet but have always found the whole idea that I could beat Luke Donald or Tiger by shooting 99 if they only manage a 72, absolutely bizarre. I would deem it a hollow achievement, akin to beating Usain Bolt with a 60M head start.

Having read the whole thread, divisions make perfect sense. You'd only need 5 to make them work well:

Scratch - 5
6-10
11-16
17-22
23-28

Let's say I join a club as a hacker and play off 28 to begin with, but even off 28 I am capable of shooting low 90's and beating the other people in my division. I improve, my handicap drops and I am promoted to the next division up. What more incentive do I need to improve?

And it wouldn't stop me playing socially with lower handicap players if I wished to.

It's how almost every other amateur sport works, you play against people of similiar ability. If you prove yourself better than them you go on and player against better people.

I think golf suffers sometimes from the idea that just because it's ALWAYS been a certain way, it should be that way forever....

btw - the argument that people would stop playing if they had zero chance of winning and got caned every week is silly. I know plenty of amatuer footballers who rarely win and they keep going, and I genuinely think very few amateur golfers REALLY care about winning comps.
 
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Neddy said:
I'm not a member of a club yet but have always found the whole idea that I could beat Luke Donald or Tiger by shooting 99 if they only manage a 72, absolutely bizarre. I would deem it a hollow achievement, akin to beating Usain Bolt with a 60M head start.

Having read the whole thread, divisions make perfect sense. You'd only need 5 to make them work well:

Scratch - 5
6-10
11-16
17-22
23-28

Let's say I join a club as a hacker and play off 28 to begin with, but even off 28 I am capable of shooting low 90's and beating the other people in my division. I improve, my handicap drops and I am promoted to the next division up. What more incentive do I need to improve?

And it wouldn't stop me playing socially with lower handicap players if I wished to.

It's how almost every other amateur sport works, you play against people of similiar ability. If you prove yourself better than them you go on and player against better people.

I think golf suffers sometimes from the idea that just because it's ALWAYS been a certain way, it should be that way forever....

btw - the argument that people would stop playing if they had zero chance of winning and got caned every week is silly. I know plenty of amatuer footballers who rarely win and they keep going, and I genuinely think very few amateur golfers REALLY care about winning comps.
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Why so many divisions. My club runs medals/stablefords as 0-12, 13-19 and 20+ unless there arent enough entries when I believe it goes 0-14 and 15-28
 
Region3 said:
NR'ing 1 hole even in a medal isn't automatically 0.1 back. For handicapping it counts as a nett double bogey even though they're out of the comp.

It's the people that put NR on every hole after they've done it once that want educating.
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You're right Gary, perhaps I should have worded it differently - those that seek to manipulate their handicaps can do just that, have one 'unlucky' hole and then scrub a few more as they "are already out of the comp".

I still want it changing though! :p
 
HomerJSimpson said:
Why so many divisions. My club runs medals/stablefords as 0-12, 13-19 and 20+ unless there arent enough entries when I believe it goes 0-14 and 15-28
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An example of exactly what Neddy was saying!

'I think golf suffers sometimes from the idea that just because it's ALWAYS been a certain way, it should be that way forever....'

While the 3 (or 2) divisions may work well (at your club), more divisions should eliminate the issues the 'low' cappers have of exceptional scores by mid/high-cappers - by removing them from 'their' part of the comp.
 
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