WHS abuse

[wjemather]

I wonder how many clubs have a handicap committee that has the time and capability to do what they are meant to?

As soon as the whs proposals came out, there were cries of disbelief about how it makes cheating easier. (Not saying it wasn't possible before)

Chickens coming home to roost now. Well done whoever is responsible.

All of them should do - well organised, it really isn't very much work for a committee of at least 3 people.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I think it is simply incumbent on a club’s Secretary to ensure that all members understand fully their obligations in respect of ‘handing in cards‘ for handicap purposes, and also be very clear as to what is not acceptable and the sanctions that will be handed down for non-compliance. The committee must, on their part, ensure that the competitions/handicap Secretary is assured of the full support of the committee in administering handicaps and applying any sanctions that have to be handed down - and that regular miscreants, or any who push back, will be handled by the committee and not the handicap secretary alone.

 

[Imurg]

Only got his word to go on but the Pro I saw today for my shaft fitting was saying another of his clients came in yesterday for the first time this year.
While getting ready to warm up he asked the guy how his game was..
"It's been a good year..I'm down from 10 to 1 index"
As soon as he started hitting balls the Pro said to himself " if he's off 1 I'm Tiger"

 

[Swango1980]

Only got his word to go on but the Pro I saw today for my shaft fitting was saying another of his clients came in yesterday for the first time this year.
While getting ready to warm up he asked the guy how his game was..
"It's been a good year..I'm down from 10 to 1 index"
As soon as he started hitting balls the Pro said to himself " if he's off 1 I'm Tiger"

Haha. I knew a guy at another club, pre WHS, that was exactly like that. He was able to submit general play scores with no enforcement of pre-registration. Submitted only his best rounds, which was once in a blue moon, and got down to 1. I played against him in the handicap league a few times, no better than about 10 or 11, and I am being generous. He was never a 1, and his club mates said he was awful. He became a joke figure amongst them.

This was the club that also forced members to submit all roll up scores of better 36 points as supplementary, but not scores worse than this. Very poor.

 

[Mandofred]

The club was having trouble with people sneaking on without paying (they were using the £700 plus £5 per play). They were just playing fairly regularly without registering/paying. They tightened things up after they warned a few people about this. They also put out a message stating that if you were planning on putting in a casual card you should tell the pro shop about it. I did it the first few times, but nobody was doing it and/or checking up.....so nobody does it. I think if they could put something simple into WHS that the pro shop could check off before you could turn in a score.....Showing your face to the person behind the desk would probably stop some of the "possible" cheating. Wouldn't stop it, but the pressure of having to present yourself to a club employee would likely stop people from thinking about cheating.

 

[clubchamp98]

There is a Joe Bloggs on the England Golf WHS platform though...

View attachment 44942

He will do.

 

[clubchamp98]

No, clearly a marker has to be there marking your card, not just signing it when you've finished, that's no different than not having it witnessed at all.

I meant come on the course and mark your card as you go around.
Even though he has nothing to do with golf.
Admit it wasn’t framed very well.

 

[IanM]

All of them should do - well organised, it really isn't very much work for a committee of at least 3 people.

The list of stuff on the planet that "should" operate effectively, but doesn't, is very very long.

Prevention is always better than cure. If you design points of failure into a process, expect failure.

 

[IanM]

Only got his word to go on but the Pro I saw today for my shaft fitting was saying another of his clients came in yesterday for the first time this year.
While getting ready to warm up he asked the guy how his game was..
"It's been a good year..I'm down from 10 to 1 index"
As soon as he started hitting balls the Pro said to himself " if he's off 1 I'm Tiger"

I know a couple of folk who are serious "vanity handicap " players.

Why? They win nothing. But, they get onto some great Opens for a knock down price!

 

[rulefan]

The list of stuff on the planet that "should" operate effectively, but doesn't, is very very long.

Prevention is always better than cure. If you design points of failure into a process, expect failure.

Just what would you change in the WHS? Can you provide the exact words?

 

[IanM]

Just what would you change in the WHS? Can you provide the exact words?

Absolutely. But typically, you are looking at the wording of detail. You have to start with the strategy and work down from that.

You could say that the intention of whs isn't too bad, but the implementation has been shocking.

Can you or anyone provide details of the stakeholder engagement that was conducted before the changes were made? I suspect there was none.

The underlying , almost fanatical desire to have all cards count for handicap is questionable. This resulted in all sorts of issues.

Providing the facility to add a qualifying score to your record without actually setting foot on the course is plain silly.

No discussion of cultural and behavioural changes required to make it work effectively were in any of the communications i saw or received from my club. I am not aware of anyone else who had different.

Who sanctioned a system where I still can't enter a score on a course that is under 10 miles from my house?

I read something on here about matchplay and 4 ball scores potentially being used for handicap. Anyone thinking that is sensible clearly doesn't understand golf.

I could go on. But, there's no point. There's a considerable lack of listening in this thread.

It's a great case study in how not to implement change. Imposing anything new on a diverse stakeholder group is hard . Imposing something they never asked for, without engaging them, is even harder.

Issuing a manual and saying "read this" is not communicating.

 

[IanM]

Ps. WHS is here to stay. But the issues are fixable. Trouble is, I'm not convinced those in charge understand the nature of the problem.

Post #110 asked for "the exact words." They don't exist. The words are not the problem.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Absolutely. But typically, you are looking at the wording of detail. You have to start with the strategy and work down from that.

You could say that the intention of whs isn't too bad, but the implementation has been shocking.

Can you or anyone provide details of the stakeholder engagement that was conducted before the changes were made? I suspect there was none.

The underlying , almost fanatical desire to have all cards count for handicap is questionable. This resulted in all sorts of issues.

Providing the facility to add a qualifying score to your record without actually setting foot on the course is plain silly.

No discussion of cultural and behavioural changes required to make it work effectively were in any of the communications i saw or received from my club. I am not aware of anyone else who had different.

Who sanctioned a system where I still can't enter a score on a course that is under 10 miles from my house?

I read something on here about matchplay and 4 ball scores potentially being used for handicap. Anyone thinking that is sensible clearly doesn't understand golf.

I could go on. But, there's no point. There's a considerable lack of listening in this thread.

It's a great case study in how not to implement change. Imposing anything new on a diverse stakeholder group is hard . Imposing something they never asked for, without engaging them, is even harder.

Issuing a manual and saying "read this" is not communicating.

Exactly…any ful kno that change that involves introduction of any sort of new technology is the proverbial ‘three-legged stool’ of technology; processes and people (culture and behaviours). All the great technology and carefully defined processes in the world will fail if the culture and behaviours of the people targeted by the change are not properly taken into account and managed.

I’m in the main OK with the way WHS is designed and supposed to work…and can, and choose to, put aside any frustrations I might have over those who might ab/misuse it…but I can hear and understand the voices of those for whom it doesn’t and can’t. And no matter how much I might try and convince them otherwise I suspect my exhortations, though perhaps listened to, are not accepted or taken on board - in truth why should they.

 

[Jigger]

A second 9 equivalent to 17 points Stableford over the same 9 holes is added to create an 18-hole differential.

In many other jurisdictions, such as Australia, 9-hole scores are held until another 9-hole score is entered; they are then matched to create an 18-hole differential; if no further 9-hole score is entered within 20 scores, it is discarded.

Since 9-hole scores are one of the options in WHS, it's possible that some jurisdictions simply do not accept them at all.

Interesting feedback thanks. Amazing how the WHS is supposed to unify but politics has yet again won the day.

 

[Swango1980]

Just what would you change in the WHS? Can you provide the exact words?

Plenty of good things about WHS, but certainly things I'd like to see change generally.

However, with regard to the the types of cheats we talk about, I'm not sure I'd necessarily change a lot about WHS itself. However, I would like to see changes to the technology and communications. We saw rapid changes to the tech to accommodate the basics, essentially allowing general play scores to be submitted quickly, pre reg. Etc.

But, I think things need to change even more. Exactly what, I don't know entirely. Probably software that allows all competitive scores to be added. Not necessarily for acceptable handicap rounds, but for documentation of official competition results. So, anybody running match play or team open events, even though not acceptable for handicap, can register attendance of everyone with official handicap and record scores and positions. They could then develop automatic processes to help.committees, by flagging members that may have unusually good scores in competitive golf outside acceptable scores.

Algorithms to highlight unusual scoring patterns, such as differences between general play and competition.

Basically, anything that can close as many of the loopholes the devious types can exploit, but can also help Committee members who may be oblivious to many of these tricks, or don't have the time / ability to manually spot some of these patterns.

 

[nickjdavis]

Plenty of good things about WHS, but certainly things I'd like to see change generally.

However, with regard to the the types of cheats we talk about, I'm not sure I'd necessarily change a lot about WHS itself. However, I would like to see changes to the technology and communications. We saw rapid changes to the tech to accommodate the basics, essentially allowing general play scores to be submitted quickly, pre reg. Etc.

But, I think things need to change even more. Exactly what, I don't know entirely. Probably software that allows all competitive scores to be added. Not necessarily for acceptable handicap rounds, but for documentation of official competition results. So, anybody running match play or team open events, even though not acceptable for handicap, can register attendance of everyone with official handicap and record scores and positions. They could then develop automatic processes to help.committees, by flagging members that may have unusually good scores in competitive golf outside acceptable scores.

Algorithms to highlight unusual scoring patterns, such as differences between general play and competition.

Basically, anything that can close as many of the loopholes the devious types can exploit, but can also help Committee members who may be oblivious to many of these tricks, or don't have the time / ability to manually spot some of these patterns.

Maybe simply limiting the number of General Play cards that can be submitted in a given period (1 a week?) might alleviate some of the issues that allow players to quickly "cleanse" their handicap records.

I think most ISV software already has the ability to add comps of all format types...even non h'cap qualifying events....however...to expect the ISV's to rewrite their software to allow committees to analyse trends is asking a bit much, especially after the authorities have effectively removed the handicapping element that formed a major part of the software offering of the various systems. I think the ISV's would turn round and say...."sod off...we will send you the scores by all means, but you (EG for example) can develop the back end analysis tools".

 

[Swango1980]

Maybe simply limiting the number of General Play cards that can be submitted in a given period (1 a week?) might alleviate some of the issues that allow players to quickly "cleanse" their handicap records.

I think most ISV software already has the ability to add comps of all format types...even non h'cap qualifying events....however...to expect the ISV's to rewrite their software to allow committees to analyse trends is asking a bit much, especially after the authorities have effectively removed the handicapping element that formed a major part of the software offering of the various systems. I think the ISV's would turn round and say...."sod off...we will send you the scores by all means, but you (EG for example) can develop the back end analysis tools".

In terms of limiting GP rounds, I guess it is worth consideration if this issue needed to be dealt with. Although, the weakness is that it would effectively punish 99% of honest golfers. For example, it I was to go weeks golf trip to various courses, would be nice to submit scores each day.

I certainly wouldn't ask ISVs to keep all competition scores of non acceptable rounds. Too many software providers spoil the broth. I'd like to see MyEG do this in England. Club comps, acceptable scores, can still be processed through ISVs. But, match play and Team Opens could be logged within MyEG by organisers, and MyEG providing the analysis tools, was my thinking.

 

[Deleted member 25575]

I’m not sure limiting the number of general play cards to one per week is going to help overall, I might play 7 times in a week, subbing one card only makes no sense, that card could well be the worst of the 7 or best, but that would effectively change my HCI to something I’m not necessarily playing to.
For me the problem lies with the people who cheat the system.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Absolutely. But typically, you are looking at the wording of detail. You have to start with the strategy and work down from that.

You could say that the intention of whs isn't too bad, but the implementation has been shocking.

Can you or anyone provide details of the stakeholder engagement that was conducted before the changes were made? I suspect there was none.

The underlying , almost fanatical desire to have all cards count for handicap is questionable. This resulted in all sorts of issues.

Providing the facility to add a qualifying score to your record without actually setting foot on the course is plain silly.

No discussion of cultural and behavioural changes required to make it work effectively were in any of the communications i saw or received from my club. I am not aware of anyone else who had different.

Who sanctioned a system where I still can't enter a score on a course that is under 10 miles from my house?

I read something on here about matchplay and 4 ball scores potentially being used for handicap. Anyone thinking that is sensible clearly doesn't understand golf.

I could go on. But, there's no point. There's a considerable lack of listening in this thread.

It's a great case study in how not to implement change. Imposing anything new on a diverse stakeholder group is hard . Imposing something they never asked for, without engaging them, is even harder.

Issuing a manual and saying "read this" is not communicating.

This is an absoluetly fantastic response, word for word I agree, and many of these words I've actually said to Scottish Golf. Probably the best post I've ever seen both on WHS, and on this forum.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Interesting feedback thanks. Amazing how the WHS is supposed to unify but politics has yet again won the day.

EH? You'll have to clarify that, by politics do you mean incompetence?