Whs, winter and my course rating turning me into a bandit.

[Jigger]

I have eight friends attached to my England Golf account, playing at three different clubs. I have just had a look and the last time any of them submitted a card was on the 2nd Nov, one guy with a 2.7 index shot an 81.

Despite what some on here preach, nobody I know is submitting a card. No indexes are flying upwards because of terrible winter conditions. Everyone will restart in the spring when their handicap will mirror their form of last autumn when we all last played true golf.

Yep. I want my handicap to reflect my best golf and over winter I see too many variables that can wreck a round so I don’t put cards in. However we run a winter league as fun for mates from all over and some members are putting cards in and the igolf(?) members and religiously doing it.

a friend joined me at my club yesterday and tried to do a card but we noticed the club had taken the cards off the system for the winter. In the case of our course, which is better than most but still not great in winter, I personally believe it’s the right thing to do.

 

[Deleted member 30522]

The reality is that the design of WHS assumes your handicap will behave in this manner. If other players put cards in then a similar profile would be likely. Thus over the years your handicap will be shaped more like a sine curve than a straight line.

Quite the opposite, SG claimed it would just make handicaps more accurate, which over winter was always going to be a nonsense. Less run, less flight through the air, unpredictable greens not conducive to good putting. What the OP is describing is exactly what I and others predicted, that those clubs who continue to run qualifying comps in the former winter period, would see players rising quickly

 

[Oddsocks]

My course is ranked easy but I find it quite hard to hit 36, especially over winter. Basically whatever you shoot off yellows the whs add’s 2.9 to your score and 2.2 off whites. I have also been religiously entering all my scores into the system and as a result I’ve gone up from 7.0 to 11.4 since summer. Now I know once the weather turns I’ll be a bandit off that. I guess my question is, is it right to be putting every score in each time you play? And accept that over winter you will fatten up and in summer lean up and clean up in the comps? I guess I’ve had many years of winning nothing as I can never get near the higher handicapper scores, so maybe I should just embrace it. Anyone else in a similar situation?

If it bothers you that much, why not hit different clubs off the forward tees during the winter so that the course plays the same.

There are 4 holes in particular that in the winter off the yellows I’ll hit a 3 wood or hybrid just so I play the same (ish) approach shot throughout the winter. Pointless cutting a corner of a particular dog leg that you know you can’t carry during the main season off the whites, or going into a green with a 7/8i during the winter when it’s a 5i/4h in the summer.

 

[woofers]

No offence intended but some observations :

My course is ranked easy but I find it quite hard to hit 36, especially over winter. Basically whatever you shoot off yellows the whs add’s 2.9 to your score and 2.2 off whites. I have also been religiously entering all my scores into the system and as a result I’ve gone up from 7.0 to 11.4 since summer. Now I know once the weather turns I’ll be a bandit off that. I guess my question is, is it right to be putting every score in each time you play? And accept that over winter you will fatten up and in summer lean up and clean up in the comps? I guess I’ve had many years of winning nothing as I can never get near the higher handicapper scores, so maybe I should just embrace it. Anyone else in a similar situation?

I also experienced this at my previous club pre WHS when the worst you could do is go up 0.1. My new course is quite a windy course and in winter the par 5s are unreachable in 2 for me but come summer they are 4 very good birdie opportunities.

It’s a fair question, I’ve been of 6/7/8 for years but since whs has come in and im entering all my scores, plus this new course is adding 2/3 shots on each round it’s pushing me up. There’s no guarantee I’ll get back down in Summer, but I on a day when I shoot 4-8 over in summer im gonna come in with 39-43 points.

This is effectively what’s happening to me. But I’m not trying to get my handicap up, it’s just happening and it’s making me feel a bit uneasy. But at the same time I’m just doing what’s I thought we were all encouraged to do. I guess it will come down again.

As your handicap index has increased from 7 to 11.4, you must have some consistently high scores in your recent playing record because there is a ‘soft cap’ which is 3 shots higher than your low index, so I assume your ‘soft cap’ was 10.0. After this any increases are made at a reduced rate of 50% until a ’hard cap’ of 5 shots higher than your low index is reached. So you have continued to increase, albeit at a slower rate, and are now only 0.6 off your ’handicap ceiling’.

You have had a handicap of between 6 and 8 for many years, and won nothing.
You believe that your Par 5’s are unreachable in two shots, why should they be, that’s why they are Par 5’s?
I‘m not sure 39 points makes you a bandit, 43 points is nudging it, and represents an excellent round relative to the handicap.
Where did you see that ‘we were all encouraged‘ to enter all our scores, I don’t think it’s in any of the EG WHS literature?

It seems fashionable in some quarters to blame WHS for many things, but I don’t think in your case it is particularly at fault, perhaps a handicap of 10-12 is more realistic and you will be able to pick up a prize.

 

[gridoutblack]

No offence intended but some observations :









As your handicap index has increased from 7 to 11.4, you must have some consistently high scores in your recent playing record because there is a ‘soft cap’ which is 3 shots higher than your low index, so I assume your ‘soft cap’ was 10.0. After this any increases are made at a reduced rate of 50% until a ’hard cap’ of 5 shots higher than your low index is reached. So you have continued to increase, albeit at a slower rate, and are now only 0.6 off your ’handicap ceiling’.

You have had a handicap of between 6 and 8 for many years, and won nothing.
You believe that your Par 5’s are unreachable in two shots, why should they be, that’s why they are Par 5’s?
I‘m not sure 39 points makes you a bandit, 43 points is nudging it, and represents an excellent round relative to the handicap.
Where did you see that ‘we were all encouraged‘ to enter all our scores, I don’t think it’s in any of the EG WHS literature?

It seems fashionable in some quarters to blame WHS for many things, but I don’t think in your case it is particularly at fault, perhaps a handicap of 10-12 is more realistic and you will be able to pick up a prize.

Hey thank you for the reply, you are correct about the soft cap, I actually umped the gun when I wrote my post. It was on the evening following my round and I calculated I would be off 11.4 which shocked me and prompted me to write the post. however, the next day it was actually only 10.8 (turns out I hit the soft cap on my previous round without noticing or even knowing it existed). Now I know about this, it is actually more reassuring. I feel now that I will unlikely rise much more and be able to bring it back down as the weather improves. The four par 5’s at my course are all 480-500 yards which in summer are reachable with run for me, at least they were last year(No chance in winter). As for where have I read about entering scores regularly I’ve seen it a few times here’s a quote from golf monthly itself:

“To deliver a handicap that best represents current ability, WHS asks for players to enter as many scores as possible for calculation. This means “general play” scores as well as simply competition rounds.”

 

[gridoutblack]

Quite the opposite, SG claimed it would just make handicaps more accurate, which over winter was always going to be a nonsense. Less run, less flight through the air, unpredictable greens not conducive to good putting. What the OP is describing is exactly what I and others predicted, that those clubs who continue to run qualifying comps in the former winter period, would see players rising quickly

I guess the only way it would truly work fairly is if it was mandatory to enter a score every time we play. That way all of us would go up together and come down together. Or scrap score entry altogether in nov-feb.

 

[Oddsocks]

I guess the only way it would truly work fairly is if it was mandatory to enter a score every time we play. That way all of us would go up together and come down together. Or scrap score entry altogether in nov-feb.

our role ups are now run through hdid and a card must be entered. For stableford and scoring purposes any pickups are also recorded

 

[IanM]

I guess the only way it would truly work fairly is if it was mandatory to enter a score every time we play. That way all of us would go up together and come down together. Or scrap score entry altogether in nov-feb.

Absolutely. Any system inconsistently applied, gives inconsistent outcomes.

 

[Deleted member 30522]

I guess the only way it would truly work fairly is if it was mandatory to enter a score every time we play. That way all of us would go up together and come down together. Or scrap score entry altogether in nov-feb.

If your course is n-q in winter then no, and the solution is bring back non-qualifying period as you then suggest