WHS doesn't work

[Deleted member 29109]

You mean to say that PCC didn’t kick in and help out with the score differential on the day with terrible conditions?

I am shocked! ? It probably didn’t even change!

Completely agree. General Play cards need a lot of consideration - in my opinion should be a limit on how many general play cards can contribute to your “best 8”. I’d suggest a maximum of 2. So your handicap would be your best 8 out of your last 20, but excluding all but your best 2 general play scores within those 20 rounds.

Excellent idea. Apart from how it works for people who don’t get to play in many comps?

 

[Ian_George]

You mean to say that PCC didn’t kick in and help out with the score differential on the day with terrible conditions?

I am shocked! ? It probably didn’t even change!

Completely agree. General Play cards need a lot of consideration - in my opinion should be a limit on how many general play cards can contribute to your “best 8”. I’d suggest a maximum of 2. So your handicap would be your best 8 out of your last 20, but excluding all but your best 2 general play scores within those 20 rounds.

H'mm! If manipulation by GP scores is really the goal, you'd likely have to submit over a dozen 'possibly dodgy' ones to have have any real effect! It would have been much easier to simply tank in competitions for an instant increase of 0.category each time!

 

[Swango1980]

You mean to say that PCC didn’t kick in and help out with the score differential on the day with terrible conditions?

I am shocked! ? It probably didn’t even change!

Completely agree. General Play cards need a lot of consideration - in my opinion should be a limit on how many general play cards can contribute to your “best 8”. I’d suggest a maximum of 2. So your handicap would be your best 8 out of your last 20, but excluding all but your best 2 general play scores within those 20 rounds.

That would get messy. Imagine a player who submits loads of general play scores, but not many competitions (for whatever reason). The vast majority of their last 20, 30, 40, 50, etc scores could be general play scores, but you'd have older scores than that within their top 8 simply because that is how far back you'd need to go to have a competition round.

Also, what about the situation where you have a player who is doing well in general play rounds. Yet, their Index is significantly higher than it should be, because it ignores 5 or 6 good GP scores (as you've capped this at 2), for worse competition scores in the top 8.

 

[jim8flog]

Played the other day.
A guy in the other group who had insisted on putting in a GP card on the previous day in terrible conditions & was insisting on putting in another one on the day I played when the wind was gusting to 35mph & sporadic rain.

Turns out he shot 22 points & one of his group said ahh well he got his wish to bump up his H/C a bit.
I suspect quite a few will use the winter for this in an effort to gain a few shots prior to the new season kicking off in the Spring.

Nobody will convince me that WHS isn't easier to manipulate & those that of that inclination are taking full advantage.

Surely a players handicap should be based upon all conditions not just when the weather is at it's best.

 

[rulefan]

Surely a players handicap should be based upon all conditions not just when the weather is at it's best.

That's how it is supposed to be done. It's not a summer only handicap,

 

[Captain_Black.]

That's how it is supposed to be done. It's not a summer only handicap,

Slogging around in the mud / gale force wind & rain is hardly conducive to enjoyable qualifing golf though is it?
I mostly remember until very recently when the tee's got moved forward onto mat's the course was no longer an approved measured course so qualifiers could not be played.
Until very recently this was usually about the time the clocks go back at the end of Oct.

 

[badgergm]

its Not supposed to make any difference is it? Not sure what you’re implying here. That handicaps shpild expect to go up in the Winter? That wouldnt be fair on those who dont play in Winter?

 

[Swango1980]

Slogging around in the mud / gale force wind & rain is hardly conducive to enjoyable qualifing golf though is it?
I mostly remember until very recently when the tee's got moved forward onto mat's the course was no longer an approved measured course so qualifiers could not be played.
Until very recently this was usually about the time the clocks go back at the end of Oct.

It is still the case, if not on a measured course, that rounds not acceptable for handicap.

It rains in summer as well, and it can be windy. Should they not count? Wayward shots more likely to find trouble in summer, as ball flies and bounces further. Rough is higher in summer, and bushy trees more lush, harder to find.

I have known people to score well.in winter as well. Looking at the 2 to 3 competition scores coming in at my own club, they do not appear unusually worse compared to summer scores. Last 3 weekday roll ups been won with 37, 39 and 40 points in last week, which is similar to summer ones.

 

[Backsticks]

Completely agree. General Play cards need a lot of consideration - in my opinion should be a limit on how many general play cards can contribute to your “best 8”. I’d suggest a maximum of 2. So your handicap would be your best 8 out of your last 20, but excluding all but your best 2 general play scores within those 20 rounds.

What difference do you see between general play cards and non general play cards ? And why the one sidedness, with no limit on the number of non general play cards ?

 

[Captain_Black.]

It is still the case, if not on a measured course, that rounds not acceptable for handicap.

It rains in summer as well, and it can be windy. Should they not count? Wayward shots more likely to find trouble in summer, as ball flies and bounces further. Rough is higher in summer, and bushy trees more lush, harder to find.

I have known people to score well.in winter as well. Looking at the 2 to 3 competition scores coming in at my own club, they do not appear unusually worse compared to summer scores. Last 3 weekday roll ups been won with 37, 39 and 40 points in last week, which is similar to summer ones.

Depends entirely on the type of course you play & the area of the country to an extent.
We currently have placing on the fairways & dropping in the rough.
As for the rough being higher in the summer?
I don't find that is the case, as the rough & now the fairways are too wet to cut & the course too soft for the machinery.
To me, serious golf is played in the Spring / Summer & autumn.
Winter is just a quick knock to keep your eye in & not to be taken too seriously.
Really don't see what can be gained from playing qualifiers in the winter.

 

[Deleted member 15717]

Depends entirely on the type of course you play & the area of the country to an extent.
We currently have placing on the fairways & dropping in the rough.
As for the rough being higher in the summer?
I don't find that is the case, as the rough & now the fairways are too wet to cut & the course too soft for the machinery.
To me, serious golf is played in the Spring / Summer & autumn.
Winter is just a quick knock to keep your eye in & not to be taken too seriously.
Really don't see what can be gained from playing qualifiers in the winter.

shouldn’t this make the course non-qualifying then, and not suitable for handicap cards. The club should be stopping cards being put in by actually administering stuff.

one of my clubs, last winter, had the course removed from MyEG as they could not guarantee qualifying conditions every day due to work on the course etc.
on days with competitions, they got the course set up so it was ‘legal’ and then to submit a card you had to be in the competition.

 

[IanM]

Round and round we go...
(Again)

 

[clubchamp98]

Depends entirely on the type of course you play & the area of the country to an extent.
We currently have placing on the fairways & dropping in the rough.
As for the rough being higher in the summer?
I don't find that is the case, as the rough & now the fairways are too wet to cut & the course too soft for the machinery.
To me, serious golf is played in the Spring / Summer & autumn.
Winter is just a quick knock to keep your eye in & not to be taken too seriously.
Really don't see what can be gained from playing qualifiers in the winter.

Dropping in the rough makes it a non qualifier ?

 

[Deleted member 30522]

Depends entirely on the type of course you play & the area of the country to an extent.
We currently have placing on the fairways & dropping in the rough.
As for the rough being higher in the summer?
I don't find that is the case, as the rough & now the fairways are too wet to cut & the course too soft for the machinery.
To me, serious golf is played in the Spring / Summer & autumn.
Winter is just a quick knock to keep your eye in & not to be taken too seriously.
Really don't see what can be gained from playing qualifiers in the winter.

Then that's the semi, not the rough, our rough is waist high in places during peak season. Now it's round your ankles

 

[Deleted member 30522]

What difference do you see between general play cards and non general play cards ? And why the one sidedness, with no limit on the number of non general play cards ?

Generally people pay an entry fee for comps, and they are comps, people usually try to play well. With nothing at stake in GP cards, the unscrupulous have free reign to bang in as many as makes them happy

 

[Golfnut1957]

Round and round we go...
(Again)

Which thread?

 

[IanM]

Which thread?

This one!

Some folk pointing out some negative implications of the WHS process in respect of general play cards, while others refuse to accept the notion.

 

[wjemather]

To me, serious golf is played in the Spring / Summer & autumn.
Winter is just a quick knock to keep your eye in & not to be taken too seriously.

Recreational hobby golfers do not play serious golf at any time of year.

Note: just because you think it's serious (or take it seriously), doesn't make it serious golf. It isn't.

 

[Swango1980]

This one!

Some folk pointing out some negative implications of the WHS process in respect of general play cards, while others refuse to accept the notion.

I'm getting confused as to what the argument is though. Is it about General Play scores, or is it about winter golf!?

I thought it was about winter golf, in which case general play has nothing to do with it. The same arguments would apply to any competitions a club chooses to run throughout the winter.

If it is about general play, then we all know that golfers can, more easily, manipulate their handicap if they want, relative to pre-WHS. In which case, this could apply all year round. Hopefully this can be identified by Handicap Committees, but I think it would be next to impossible to 100% confirm a golfer is doing this dishonestly, unless that golfer isn't very clever about how they go about it. However, I don't think prohibiting or limiting GP scores on a handicap record is the answer, as it impacts the vast majority that play honestly. And, in a lot of cases, might actually ignore some really good general play scores and give a player a higher Index. Maybe they'll think of some clever ways to evaluate and deal with this in the future, who knows. More extensive automatic comparisons between GP and Competition scores, and maybe some other adjustments to the final index based on these (i.e. similar to additional adjustments when a soft or hard cap come into play). Although, even if something like this was to happen in the future, I'd expect it wouldn't even be a consideration for a very very long time. I think they will give WHS more time to settle, and be looking more at things that are different between national authorities, and seeing if the system could be refined to have less regional variations (e.g. The UK to adopt CR-Par, or the rest of the world to get rid of it)

 

[LincolnShep]

The generalisation that "scores are better in the summer" doesn't hold water, it is entirely dependent on the type of course, the area of the country, and the type of player. Some will be better with soft ground, some will be better with no wind. Personally, I hate hard fairways and I have a low ball flight so don't worry too much about the wind. I've looked at my scores from the last eight years and I score better in the winter.

Since 2014 my average score differential in the summer has been worse than the winter (22.9 v 23.7). If I exclude Winter 20/21 (as I hardly played, and it skews the numbers) then the winter average drops to 22.7, exactly one shot better than my summer average. BTW, for the purpose of this exercise, "Summer" is Apr-Sep and "Winter" is Oct-Mar.