WHS - is it an advantage to higher handicaps

[chrisd]

Just as long as they don't take your putting into account.....
????

I've improved Rob, only 4 putting now!

 

[azazel]

The one thing that I really struggle to get my head around is the long-term member of a club, who's handicap has been achieved solely by playing on his home course.
They've been playing 15 years, have a pre WHS handicap of 10
They p,ay to it on and off, eat it a few times a year and go up a bit but remain fairly steady, a shot or so either side of 10.
WHS comes in and his calculation gives him an Index of 10.7
His course has a Slope of 138
All of a sudden his course handicap is now 13....or 12 in competition
So, magically, he has gained 2 shots.
A handicap that was pretty stable at 10 is now 12 or 13...when playing on the same course
Why should he need extra shots around his own course when his previous handicap was maintained entirely by playing on that course....

Because everyone else who plays the course will also have their handicaps adjusted in a similar manner? Not saying that's justification for changing to WHS, but if you take at face value that it makes handicaps more portable and that's why it was introduced, then as long as the change in your player's handicap remains consistent with everyone else who plays the course then he hasn't lost out on anything in practical terms.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Yes, so was the last system, so no change in this respect, in my view.
The question should be, "Has WHS brought more of an advantage to higher handicappers?"
The question also needs to be qualified by what exactly is meant by "advantage".
Is it an advantage to higher handicappers if the new system gives them an improved method for larger and more frequent reductions to handicap compared with lower handicappers?
Are we not all trying to reduce our handicaps? Is any handicap range of golfers advantaged or disadvantaged in this respect by the new system? Your views please?

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Well....historically scrambles have always been biased towards teams of low handicappers....so nothing more than balancing out what has, historically been and hugely unfair format to high handicappers.

When we got our indexes for all the members of our club I did an analysis and it showed that 50% of players had a WHS index within 2 shots of their old Congu Handicap, 30% of players had a lower index and 20% had a higher index.

Just to highlight some unsubstantiated garbage from the article that in of itself proves nothing about the WHS...

At my home club, five of the seven medals or Stableford competitions held this season have been won by a golfer who had a Playing Handicap of at least 22.

Did the writer do any analysis of the proportion of entrants by handicap to determine if statistically 22 +handicappers were over-represented in terms of entry numbers?

A player with a World Handicap System index of around 23 is getting 28 shots, reduced to 27 with the Playing Handicap, in a competition off the the white tees at my club (rating 73.6, slope 136). I don’t care what kind of golfer you are, being given a bunch of extra shots – or perhaps a couple more if you take the old system into account – is going to give you some confidence and something to play with. It certainly did for me.

But because the Index is normalised for a course with a slope of 113 it is quite likely that the players old Congu handicap might have been anything from 26 to 30....did the writer care to check whether any players who were off 23 under Congu were still off 23 under the WHS and getting significantly more extra shots?

Its a lightweight article that offers no substance to support its opening line of "Early days of the World Handicap System show an advantage to those with more shots in the bank" and is not worth the paper it is written on.

When it comes to scrambles maybe we were different because we seemed to have a mix of winners - one group of low HC won one scramble , the rest over the last couple of years seemed to be very spread out in regards the winners including mixed teams - certainly didn’t seem to favour the lower handicaps and the results seemed tightly packed

Right now whether it’s the system or the fact it’s new a lot of the comp results being published by people would seem to favour the higher handicaps

Can only go by what we have seen at the club but the lower guys seemed to have lost shots of their handicap whilst they higher to mid seemed to have gained shots

It’s certainly something worth discussing and see how things are going to progress over the coming months

 

[rulefan]

Playing in friendly games with my mates we're just going to stick to our old tried and tested handicaps.

Is that what you did before CONGU came in?

 

[nickjdavis]

At my club (Slope 133 off whites, 130 off yellows), excluding golfers who had played fewer than 20 rounds, these were the following comparisons between CONGU handicaps and WHS COURSE Handicaps, after taking the average for the change of each player:

CONGU 0-9: WHS +0.3 WHS +0.3
CONGU 10-14: WHS +0.6 WHS +0.1
CONGU 15-19: WHS +1.7 WHS +0.6
CONGU 20-24: WHS +2.4 WHS +1.4
CONGU 25-30: WHS +2.8 WHS +1.3
CONGU 30+: WHS +3.4 WHS +2.0

So, compared to the last system, higher handicappers have gained more shots than lower handicappers. Perhaps the argument will be that the last system was unfair to higher handicappers?

Did a similar thing for our club...my numbers in red above. So a similar trend....possibly a smaller data set (slope 124 whites) leads to a bit more statistical variation in that the trend is replicated exactly. But....the simple fact of the matter is that these sorts of differences cannot be used to explain vast numbers of 40+ point winning scores or nett scores in the low 60's. It wouldn't surprise me if we actually now have a higher proportion of entrants into comps from "higher handicaps"....thats another analysis!!!

 

[nickjdavis]

When it comes to scrambles maybe we were different because we seemed to have a mix of winners - one group of low HC won one scramble , the rest over the last couple of years seemed to be very spread out in regards the winners including mixed teams - certainly didn’t seem to favour the lower handicaps and the results seemed tightly packed

Right now whether it’s the system or the fact it’s new a lot of the comp results being published by people would seem to favour the higher handicaps

Can only go by what we have seen at the club but the lower guys seemed to have lost shots of their handicap whilst they higher to mid seemed to have gained shots

It’s certainly something worth discussing and see how things are going to progress over the coming months

There's probably some truth in the above about different experiences... mine have been that it always seemed that the lowest handicapped teams did the best. I always thought that scramble allowances pre WHS were fairly arbitrary...take 4 players off 28 playing 1/10th combined handicap and they've got 11.6 shots....take a team with 4 players off 5 and they've got 2 shots.....I know where my tenner would go every time on who is going to win!

I suspect the new system is fairer in that the same 4 ball teams as above would get 19.6 shots and 3.5 shots respectively....I'd certainly think twice before sticking my money on the low guys with those shots.

I personally always thought that 1/7th to 1/8th was fairer for a 4 ball scramble and maybe 1/6th for a 3 ball scramble.

 

[wjemather]

Yes, so was the last system, so no change in this respect, in my view.
The question should be, "Has WHS brought more of an advantage to higher handicappers?"

Actually, the old handicap systems all contained mechanisms that gave lower handicappers an advantage, e.g. by not accounting for Slope or having a "bonus of excellence" factor, etc. Even under WHS, low handicappers have the advantage but it's now far less significant.

 

[jim8flog]

The one thing that I really struggle to get my head around is the long-term member of a club, who's handicap has been achieved solely by playing on his home course.
They've been playing 15 years, have a pre WHS handicap of 10
They p,ay to it on and off, eat it a few times a year and go up a bit but remain fairly steady, a shot or so either side of 10.
WHS comes in and his calculation gives him an Index of 10.7
His course has a Slope of 138
All of a sudden his course handicap is now 13....or 12 in competition
So, magically, he has gained 2 shots.
A handicap that was pretty stable at 10 is now 12 or 13...when playing on the same course
Why should he need extra shots around his own course when his previous handicap was maintained entirely by playing on that course....

I did not realise you knew me

The question comes is the Course Rating higher than the previous SSS. I have gained a shot simply because the rating is nearly a shot higher than the SSS although my scores in the past year have probably gained me an extra shot.

 

[jim8flog]

Playing in friendly games with my mates we're just going to stick to our old tried and tested handicaps.

So what do you do when one of your mates wins a competition by a few shots lower the the course rating?

 

[Voyager EMH]

Actually, the old handicap systems all contained mechanisms that gave lower handicappers an advantage, e.g. by not accounting for Slope or having a "bonus of excellence" factor, etc. Even under WHS, low handicappers have the advantage but it's now far less significant.

But I felt disadvantaged as a low handicapper by 0.1 reduction per shot below handicap, whereas higher handicappers could produce much larger to reductions in handicap.
As I said, are we not all trying to reduce our handicaps by as much as we can? Higher handicaps were greatly advantaged by the old system in this respect.

 

[D-S]

This is would be an interesting question if anyone ever did a study of Club Open winners. My assumption is that within any one club it will be much of a muchness as everyone was handicappped at that course. However the key issue of WHS is the portability of handicaps and their relativity to the actual course played. So it would be interesting to see how well or not HI’s travel; are players advantaged or not from higher sloped and CR courses or from lower ones?
I don’t know of any reports that could show it but it might be interesting to know if Opens get won more or less often by players from tougher (or maybe easier) tracks than would have been the case under the previous ratchet non slope system.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Why are so many obsessed with winners of competitions? Play the best you can and reduce your handicap by as much as you can - is this not the main objective? Does the new system make this easier or harder for you to do than the old system? If you win a comp along the way, that is merely a side issue where luckily, you were not as bad as everyone else on that day.

 

[PJ87]

Why are so many obsessed with winners of competitions? Play the best you can and reduce your handicap by as much as you can - is this not the main objective? Does the new system make this easier or harder for you to do than the old system? If you win a comp along the way, that is merely a side issue where luckily, you were not as bad as everyone else on that day.

Yes! Spot on. All I want to do is improve

Gives good measure

 

[Jimaroid]

There's probably some truth in the above about different experiences... mine have been that it always seemed that the lowest handicapped teams did the best. I always thought that scramble allowances pre WHS were fairly arbitrary...

Scramble formats are fairly arbitrary as a whole. Nobody should make comparisons based on scrambles because scrambles are not a single consistent format.

Even within one club it’s difficult to correlate results across multiple years of a single scramble being held. I’d argue that if one end of a handicap range appears to win more in scrambles at one club it’s more likely to be an error introduced through modified rules, the type of thing a committee member dreamt up as a good idea without being able to think through probable outcomes or understanding that randomness doesn’t guarantee you don’t get the same result twice in a row.

And that creates a feedback loop because the format the next year gets modified again to correct in favour of the other handicap range because there’s an unsubstantiated opinion that “low handicappers always win this competition” and it skews things again but randomness hides the problem by pure chance for one year the low handicappers win and the committee genius thinks “Hurrah! We’ve fixed the problem, we’re so clever!“ but then high handicappers starting winning again because in fact, they actually made things worse and around and around it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.

I hate scrambles. I may have mentioned it.

 

[Swango1980]

Why are so many obsessed with winners of competitions? Play the best you can and reduce your handicap by as much as you can - is this not the main objective? Does the new system make this easier or harder for you to do than the old system? If you win a comp along the way, that is merely a side issue where luckily, you were not as bad as everyone else on that day.

Many people play competitions because they gave a competitive urge. Nothing wrong with that.

If everyone wasn't bothered about winning comps, there probably wouldn't be any point in them. Just let everyone go out with their mates and submit cards afterwards

 

[fundy]

Just before the WHS came in I was 14.4, but had worked hard on swing improvements

Next day I was 14.5

After 4 qualifying rounds in poor conditions and poor weather 15.2

Playing off whites yesterday in a friendly 17

I'm going to do some competition damage soon as the last round before the December lockdown I shot 74 gross

74 off 14 or 17, still going to do some damage

 

[Voyager EMH]

Many people play competitions because they gave a competitive urge. Nothing wrong with that.

If everyone wasn't bothered about winning comps, there probably wouldn't be any point in them. Just let everyone go out with their mates and submit cards afterwards

Yeh, sure. I have always had that competitive urge, go out there do the best you can on the day. I was not suggesting that anyone should do otherwise. But do the best you can over a period of time to reduce your handicap is the overriding objective (or should be). If I am allowed to assume that this is everyone's objective, does the new system make this easier (advantage) for higher handicappers to achieve? That is the question at start of the thread. There seemed to be too much of an emphasis on winning comps as the main objective. We are amateurs. Winning a comp means you were not as bad as everyone else on that day. Being the lowest or among the lowest handicap at your club - now that is real achievement, in my view. Enjoyment is key. This can be achieved whatever your ability or handicap, if you simply love playing golf, as I do.

 

[Slab]

Why would scrambles be mentioned. Isn’t it still just a fun unofficial format?
Although if that’s the lengths we have to go to look at in order to judge if WHS favours the higher handicap then maybe it means its working not too bad so far

 

[RichA]

Is it not just the nature of golf handicaps? I normally go round my course in 90-105, but at various times I've birdied most holes on the course and parred them all.
If I was to have a really good one off round (it hasn't happened yet, but I live in hope), there's a vaguely realistic chance I could go low 80s. A 10 handicap golfer isn't realistically likely to go round 5 under gross par. Not at my course anyway.