What percentage in your medals shoot under CSS?

[Kennysarmy]

Just having a discussion with a mate who says you should play to your handicap 20% of the time. Which by my reckoning would mean 20% of the field should be under CSS, it's no where near that at my course, nearer 5%!!!

So in a typical medal at your course, what's the rough stats and how often do you think you would play under CSS?

 

[backwoodsman]

At ours, in Saturday's medal, 11 out of 125 played better than CSS - just about 9%. Which is about normal for us.

 

[2blue]

Playing to your H/cap means 'buffer or better'. So for yourself it would be a round of nett 70 or better when CSS is same as Par ie 72 for example & would include bad holes counted as no worse than 2 over nett.
So buffer would vary for players of differing Cats so bit of working out to do to get there..... sorry I have no time for that but would expect to do so myself about 30% of the time

 

[duncan mackie]

Just having a discussion with a mate who says you should play to your handicap 20% of the time. Which by my reckoning would mean 20% of the field should be under CSS, it's no where near that at my course, nearer 5%!!!

There's a few flaws in this statement.

Firstly, do you mean CSS? That's already a normalised/adjusted figure.
Secondly there's a huge difference between playing to handicap and being under CSS/SSS. A quick review of recent results suggests that that alone represents another 20% ie of those who played to their handicap only 20% were under CSS.
The statistical norm is that around 20-30% will play to their handicaps (reverse engineer a cat 1's scoring to see why this is the case).

 

[Deleted member 21258]

On our last medal :-

2 out of 37 was under CSS (70) [5.4%]
6 out of 37 was at CSS (70) [16.2]
No one shot 71.

Hopefully that helps

 

[richbeech]

In our medals CSS is usually 74 or 75 and I would say on an average week roughly 10 players would play to CSS or better out of a field of about 80.

 

[ArnoldArmChewer]

We had a good class field of am golfers playing in a 36 hole comp on Saturday, out of 100 rounds only 14 were par or better, the comp was for club champions only so whilst I havn't a h/c list I suspect they should all have been fairly decent Cat 1 players.

 

[jim8flog]

In our last 21 comps (June to now)
CSS against SSs
2 - dropped one shot
3 increased one shot
1 increased 2 shots
16 remained the same

I reckon the comps that alter the most are likely to be winter comps where I play

Personal record over the past year for qualifying comps

Better than CSS 3
Buffer or equal to 3
over 14

Started the past year on 9.6 currently 9.7

 

[rksquire]

Last 2 weeks, 7.5% at CSS or better (CSS was +2); and 14% (CSS was +5). Both stroke competitions.

 

[Orikoru]

Doesn't CSS change if too many people are under it anyway? I'm confused.

 

[robinthehood]

Doesn't CSS change if too many people are under it anyway? I'm confused.

Me too , i just check the results and sometimes it changes and I wonder why

 

[Dasit]

CSS changing is to do with number of people buffering or better.

It is a formula that is automatically run on HDID etc

The 20% thing for hitting handicap is just a myth. Some people are steady and will shoot around handicap most rounds.

Some people are very streak, shooting rubbish rounds then throwing in a really good round.

 

[backwoodsman]

Doesn't CSS change if too many people are under it anyway? I'm confused.

Short answer is - no..

Yes CSS is set depending on the range of scores returned, but it is what it is. Think of it in the same way you would think of an "average". It's calculated depending on the range returned - if you're under it, you're under, if not you're not.

 

[Orikoru]

Short answer is - no..

Yes CSS is set depending on the range of scores returned, but it is what it is. Think of it in the same way you would think of an "average". It's calculated depending on the range returned - if you're under it, you're under, if not you're not.

Well that doesn't make any sense. It still sounds like if a high percentage of people are under the CSS then it will go down. i.e. in the first post he says he expects 20% of people to be under CSS, but it sounds to me like if they were, then it would go down, so some of them wouldn't be under it anymore!

 

[Backsticks]

Depends what one means by 'ones handicap'. Whatever, 20% is way to high. Anyone doing that is a handicap manipulator.
Ones range of scores will be a normal curve biased to the low side (since more likely to by a long way below CSS than above it), with a a spread of around 14 for teen and above handicaps, and narrowing to about 10 as handicap decreases to scratch. So any score in the range +/-6 can be taken as playing to your handicap - i.e. within its natural variation.
Hitting CSS or exceeding it, assuming the handicap is in a stable state and correct, will happen 5-10% of rounds.
So really, most people are playing to their handicap all the time (unless they are improving or disimproving). And their average score will be 3-4 shots below the CSS. They will be on the upper 10% of their handicap range - CSS or better - about 1 in 15 rounds.

 

[Kennysarmy]

Depends what one means by 'ones handicap'. Whatever, 20% is way to high. Anyone doing that is a handicap manipulator.
Ones range of scores will be a normal curve biased to the low side (since more likely to by a long way below CSS than above it), with a a spread of around 14 for teen and above handicaps, and narrowing to about 10 as handicap decreases to scratch. So any score in the range +/-6 can be taken as playing to your handicap - i.e. within its natural variation.
Hitting CSS or exceeding it, assuming the handicap is in a stable state and correct, will happen 5-10% of rounds.
So really, most people are playing to their handicap all the time (unless they are improving or disimproving). And their average score will be 3-4 shots below the CSS. They will be on the upper 10% of their handicap range - CSS or better - about 1 in 15 rounds.

Thanks for replying, in your last paragraph, do you mean, 3-4 shots above the CSS? And lower rather than better in about 1 in 15 rounds?

 

[Deleted member 1147]

Last 3 medals have had 13%, 18% and 20% play under that day’s CSS.

 

[Backsticks]

Thanks for replying, in your last paragraph, do you mean, 3-4 shots above the CSS? And lower rather than better in about 1 in 15 rounds?

I did mean above, yes. Sorry, but was thinking Stableford, so often do we play it in our club (3 out of 4 weekends typically). I was thinking of 3-4 points below a nominal 36 pts. When h/c secretary some years ago I did study this topic and its patterns in our club, with typically 90-120 players per qualifying comp. On tougher days, the fewer bettered CSS despite it moving. On easy days, more people bettered it. Dont really follow the detail of how CSS is adjusted, and its probably by design, but it did seem to me that it does not move enough on the most easy or difficult days to have the same % equal or better CSS.