WHS doesn't work

[AussieKB]

Its crap. It inflates your handicap so quickly that as soon as form turns your on a winning position instantly. The fact divisions are needed to address the inequalities should be evidence enough. There are hc secs up and down the country trying to process hundreds of cards a week, with more encouraged, and a pcc that means difficult conditions are ignored. Its no wonder many have given up. Or are manually over riding the system.

A system so great that it needs teams of volunteers to over ride it every week.

Slow hand clap.

Lets take the handicap system thats used in a country known for its lack of comps and general disregard for handicap accuracy, and apply it to the country with the most comps and most stringently enforced handicapping system. What could possibly go wrong!

In OZ we play comps all year round due to our weather (lucky us), so you can imagine how players can change their handicaps very quickly, for myself over the next 9 days I am playing 7 comps.

 

[SteveJay]

I can see the pros and cons from both side of the argument. I like the system and it suits me, but I am lucky in that I play 3 times a week, sometimes more in Summer. I play enough qualifying competitions to have plenty of cards going in, but can still play social golf and try new things without fear that my handicap will go up. For this that play once a week I can see their frustrations.

I may be in the minority in that I am trying hard to get my handicap down, and therefore improve my golf. I accept that the system means that I will not feature on the leaderboard in most competitions as invariably someone in the higher handicap pool of players will have a good round and score around 40 points.

I just try to focus on playing better than my handicap, knowing that should probably mean a cut. As a result I often take note of my gross score during a round even when we are playing stableford.

I know many will want to be competitive in competitions. I still do, and hope that as i improve consistency I will have opportunities when it all comes together.
Having come down from 15 to 11.4 this year i am happy that WHS is working for me.

 

[Blob Jacket]

I'm not at all. I'm saying I don't play every round like it actually matters, nor would I want to. If I put every card in, I'd probably be one of the guys everyone else moans about for winning comps with 44 points off of 17 or something! I have put some non-comp cards in, but only when I feel like taking it seriously. Sometimes you just want to hack it round and not care. Once we get into winter I don't enter comps or submit any cards at all either, otherwise I'd just go up about 3 shots in time to clean up at the start of next summer - I don't really want to do it that way.

This is a good post, especially the last point.

For me, EG seem obsessed with people submitting as many rounds as possible that they forget some people already play 25+ qualifiers a year and, even with a best 8 average and an already accurate handicap, can fluctuate massively during a season depending on form. Why would anybody in this position want - or need - to add to that with supplementary scores?

The system does work for me, as did CONGU, but I use them the same - loads of non-winter qualifying scores. The main difference between the two seems to be there was no quick reward for a bad spell or season with CONGU (4 strokes is the biggest I've seen with WHS) while you found your form again.

 

[Backache]

I may be in the minority in that I am trying hard to get my handicap down, and therefore improve my golf. I accept that the system means that I will not feature on the leaderboard in most competitions as invariably someone in the higher handicap pool of players will have a good round and score around 40 points.

I suspect your actually in the majority and probably the vast majority.
Very good scores relative to handicap only appear to be a problem in some clubs
A lot of people are reporting no change and even within those clubs the majority of scores appear reasonable, so the majority seem to have reasonable handicaps.

 

[sweaty sock]

The question I would ask is - Why are secretaries processing hundreds of cards a week? There are automatic processes and the advice from County is to only check a random few cards.

The system cannot inflate handicaps quickly as the hard and soft caps slow it down and there is a limit to increases in a calendar year.

Lets say the average player plays a comp every weekend, 0.1 lift every week is 2.6 shots in a 6 month season. Thats just reaching the soft cap in a year. You can reach the soft cap in 2 weeks now, the hard cap would have taken you 18 months to reach in CONGU. So its not exactly controlling it is it...

 

[Backsticks]

...that is exactly controlling it - reflecting current playing level. A moving average is a very good principal. 8 from 20 skews it dramatically towards your better scores.
Its UHS that was too slow to react in the upwards direction, without manual intervention, which cluba were slow to do.

 

[IanM]

As long as some folk put in all their cards for handicap, and some only put in formal comps, there will be a discrepancy. Even then, some folk play once a month, and some 5 times a week!

Do the authorities (whoever they are) actually believe that every time you play, it should count for handicap? Maybe the new system depends on it. But, that is not enforceable (or desirable)

Fundamentally the old and new handicaps are a different measure. Until players understand this, we'll have these conversations. Nothing I've seen from anywhere has addressed this. (I know an excellent change and comms consultancy that could sort this out... )

Once that is sorted we can get on to "why make it easier to cheat?"

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

As long as some folk put in all their cards for handicap, and some only put in formal comps, there will be a discrepancy. Even then, some folk play once a month, and some 5 times a week!

Do the authorities (whoever they are) actually believe that every time you play, it should count for handicap? Maybe the new system depends on it. But, that is not enforceable (or desirable)

Fundamentally the old and new handicaps are a different measure. Until players understand this, we'll have these conversations. Nothing I've seen from anywhere has addressed this. (I know an excellent change and comms consultancy that could sort this out... )

Once that is sorted we can get on to "why make it easier to cheat?"

On your last sentence how about the fact I learned yesterday that some, if not many, players do not always hole out when playing with their mates. They don‘t record an NR for the hole but feel it OK, cos that’s what they and their mates do, to count it as a holed putt. And in goes the card.

I note that this could explain the comment recently made to me in a comp by one fella I‘d never played with before - after he missed a few tiddlers - that he finds these little 18” putts tricky as he and his mates rarely play medal and when playing Stableford tend to always give gimmies for them. OK he rarely plays medal but he has to then have played and submitted Stableford cards for WHS. I struggled to understand how he could submit Stableford cards for WHS without ever holing short putts, even just for 1 pt you have to hole the putt. The clouds parted a little yesterday.

 

[jim8flog]

Lets say the average player plays a comp every weekend, 0.1 lift every week is 2.6 shots in a 6 month season. Thats just reaching the soft cap in a year. You can reach the soft cap in 2 weeks now, the hard cap would have taken you 18 months to reach in CONGU. So its not exactly controlling it is it...

There was no hard cap under the UHS.

However looking at the position of the declining golfer and I will use my self as an example

I was once a 5 handicap golfer but and age and injury made me get worse.

So say I need an uplift of 3 shots to be at the correct handicap for my ability playing I would have needed to play in 30 comps or submit supp scores with a 0.1 increase applied each time. Where I play we only have a comp once a month on a Saturday and once a week on a Thursday they will not all be qualifiers and some are team comps (plus for me Seniors single comps I reckoned on having approx 20 qualifying scores in during a year. So at the end of year one I had only gone up 2 shots and not the 3 I needed.

So the following year I might a further increase of 2-3 shots and the same thing happens therefore under the UHS I never got to the correct handicap level.

One of the things I have liked with the WHS is that I have relatively quickly got to my correct handicap level currently 10.2 H.I. but have gone as high as 12

Personally I do not a see an increase of 3 shots (soft cap start point) as a massive increase and if a player wanted to do something similar it was just as easy via the Supplementary Score system if the player wanted to put in a card every time they played.

Being on the Handicap committee I have seen players try it but it is a relatively small number, so small it is not worth changing a whole system for.

 

[Neilds]

When it comes to threads about high handicaps winning every competition with nett 56s or 56 points stableford, or 40+ handcaippers winning every knockout, I put them in the same bracket as those that moan about constant 6 hour rounds or constantly driving 320 yards on every hole. It possibly/probably does happen but only relatively few times throughout the year. Unfortunately, golfers can be a bit like fishermen and tend to exaggerate a bit and also spend a bit too much time listening to tales in the bar without much evidence to back up the claims. If they hear 3 people mention a handicap problem they automatically think it is 3 separate cases, but could be the same golfer they are talking about.

 

[nickjdavis]

When it comes to threads about high handicaps winning every competition with nett 56s or 56 points stableford, or 40+ handcaippers winning every knockout, I put them in the same bracket as those that moan about constant 6 hour rounds or constantly driving 320 yards on every hole. It possibly/probably does happen but only relatively few times throughout the year. Unfortunately, golfers can be a bit like fishermen and tend to exaggerate a bit and also spend a bit too much time listening to tales in the bar without much evidence to back up the claims. If they hear 3 people mention a handicap problem they automatically think it is 3 separate cases, but could be the same golfer they are talking about.

Have been looking at some old comp results pre/post WHS. Covid in 2020 made things a little difficult to compare but across 8 or 9 common stableford comps that have been played each year, in 2019 there were 4 scores in excess of 42 points, in 2020 there were 6 such scores. Since the introduction of the WHS there has not been a single stableford comp where a score in excess of 42 points has been recorded.

My investigation has thrown up data that indicates to me that WHS has neither increased players handicaps nor resulted in huge increase in scores, but has probably allowed 20+ handicappers to be a little bit more competitive than they previously were. Obviously that is at my own club, but if the WHS is inherently faulty I'd expect to see some sort of replication of the issues that seem to be commonly moaned about...seemingly this is not the case.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Round my place yellow tees tend to generate the highest Stableford points. The current highest Stableford score off yellows by a gent in at least the last four years is 46, and that was done precisely one year ago by a 19 handicapper - and perhaps not surprisingly he is now 16.

Stableford comps whites or yellows tend to be won by scores in the 41-43 points range, no different from pre-WHS.

 

[chellie]

On your last sentence how about the fact I learned yesterday that some, if not many, players do not always hole out when playing with their mates. They don‘t record an NR for the hole but feel it OK, cos that’s what they and their mates do, to count it as a holed putt. And in goes the card.

I note that this could explain the comment recently made to me in a comp by one fella I‘d never played with before - after he missed a few tiddlers - that he finds these little 18” putts tricky as he and his mates rarely play medal and when playing Stableford tend to always give gimmies for them. OK he rarely plays medal but he has to then have played and submitted Stableford cards for WHS. I struggled to understand how he could submit Stableford cards for WHS without ever holing short putts, even just for 1 pt you have to hole the putt. The clouds parted a little yesterday.

Have you reported it to your handicap committee?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Have you reported it to your handicap committee?

I will raise it as a suspicion. I’m thinking it’s only of the shortest gimme length, but that’s irrelevant. I have no evidence of this myself but hearsay…though I trust my source. Also it may be very rare indeed that it happens, and of course if it happens now it may also have happened before.

That said, if what was previously a casual/friendly comp is now a WHS qualifier, I can imagine some participants continuing as if it was as before with gimmes, or knocking away a ball if not going to score and having it scored as if the ball was tapped in rather than as a NR for the hole.

I would not put up with it, and if any in a group I was playing in tried it on I’d refuse to record the score and score as an NR, and if not scoring the player myself I’d say that I’d have to report it if it was so recorded.

 

[KenL]

They already do this at ours. 1-14 is division 1 and above that division 2.

But, is the medal/trophy not given to the best overall net score?

 

[backwoodsman]

Just had a look at winning scores in our 'singles' comps since April - roughly an even split between medal and stableford. But I've converted medal scores into points but also put them as a 'To Par' equivalent. Don't know what others think but the distribution doesn't look too bad to me. (Ps. Sorry, can't get the headers to line up with the columns).

Points To Par (nett) Count
37 -1 6
38 -2 1
39 -3 4
40 -4 2
41 -5 5
42 -6 6
43 -7 2
44 -8 2
46 -10 1

 

[bobmac]

When it comes to threads about high handicaps winning every competition with nett 56s or 56 points stableford, or 40+ handcaippers winning every knockout, I put them in the same bracket as those that moan about constant 6 hour rounds or constantly driving 320 yards on every hole. It possibly/probably does happen but only relatively few times throughout the year. Unfortunately, golfers can be a bit like fishermen and tend to exaggerate a bit and also spend a bit too much time listening to tales in the bar without much evidence to back up the claims. If they hear 3 people mention a handicap problem they automatically think it is 3 separate cases, but could be the same golfer they are talking about.

I could be wrong but I don't think anyone claims that every competition or every knockout is won by high handicappers.

 

[Neilds]

I could be wrong but I don't think anyone claims that every competition or every knockout is won by high handicappers.

It certainly feels that way reading some of the threads on here ?

 

[Val]

Its crap. It inflates your handicap so quickly that as soon as form turns your on a winning position instantly. The fact divisions are needed to address the inequalities should be evidence enough. There are hc secs up and down the country trying to process hundreds of cards a week, with more encouraged, and a pcc that means difficult conditions are ignored. Its no wonder many have given up. Or are manually over riding the system.

A system so great that it needs teams of volunteers to over ride it every week.

Slow hand clap.

Lets take the handicap system thats used in a country known for its lack of comps and general disregard for handicap accuracy, and apply it to the country with the most comps and most stringently enforced handicapping system. What could possibly go wrong!

Divisions were in place with the congu system so unsure why you feel its a whs problem. It also doesn't inflate your handicap quickly unless you submit a lot of cards in a short space of time and your best 7 are those in rounds 14 through 20.

The congu system was ok and for me a mix of both systems should have been the answer. The idea of your handicap being affected by form rather than ability was always the big benefit of the change, and rightly so IMO

 

[Orikoru]

My mate who is a bandit off 29, had a poor start on Saturday with a couple of early blobs, recovered with a strong back nine to finish on 35 points and came 5th in the competition. Did really well I thought. His handicap went up to 29.7 because he lost a decent round at the other end. I still can't get used to the idea that you can have a good round and still go up. It makes the idea of striving for a particular handicap target a waste of time really. In the old system it used to mean something if you achieved say, single figures for example, but if you do in this system you know that in 3 weeks you could just be right back where you started. It's just a number that constantly changes rather than something you earn and hold onto.