WHS working well for me

[Billysboots]

I preferred the old system in the sense that I knew what was going to happen to my handicap straight away, i.e. if I was getting a cut and roughly how much, or whether I was going up 0.1. Now it seems like a total lottery, but I just have to learn to forget about it entirely and wait and see.

Now I’ve got my head round it I’m finding it quite straightforward, and can work out my HI to within 0.1 or 0.2 without too many difficulties.

Ultimately it’s not the gross score which is relevant, but the score differential. Now I’ve got enough counting scores I can generally assess what each gross score off each tee at ours will equate to in terms of score differential. It’s then simply a case of averaging the best eight differentials from the last twenty.

It confused the ? out of me for a while before the penny dropped, but I can now track my HI as accurately as I could my handicap under the old system.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Or the low handicappers aren’t as good as they think they are.

?‍ Confused with what that has to do with what the golf club has done ?

Surely if whs works well then the low handicaps will be reflected of their ability -

This year for me to win any comp I would have had to go round in at least 4 under par gross - I was 2 under gross at the weekend and it wasn’t good enough to win the comp on a tough course set up

I can see why the club have done what they have

There are many clubs that are seeing members who haven’t played 20 Q rounds be given handicaps a lot higher than their ability - we have seen net 60 , 45 points plus etc win ours and some clubs have seen a lot worse

Yes it will prob all settle down once people play 20 rounds but I can certainly understand why a club would look to put some restrictions in place - I know many are getting rid of the scramble recommendations because it favours the high HC , others putting in maximum shots in KOs etc

Maybe WhS isn’t giving everyone a true reflection of their playing ability

 

[Deleted member 29109]

Or the low handicappers aren’t as good as they think they are.

What a strange comment.

They would be still better than the high handicappers.

 

[Old Skier]

?‍ Confused with what that has to do with what the golf club has done ?

Surely if whs works well then the low handicaps will be reflected of their ability -

This year for me to win any comp I would have had to go round in at least 4 under par gross - I was 2 under gross at the weekend and it wasn’t good enough to win the comp on a tough course set up

I can see why the club have done what they have

There are many clubs that are seeing members who haven’t played 20 Q rounds be given handicaps a lot higher than their ability - we have seen net 60 , 45 points plus etc win ours and some clubs have seen a lot worse

Yes it will prob all settle down once people play 20 rounds but I can certainly understand why a club would look to put some restrictions in place - I know many are getting rid of the scramble recommendations because it favours the high HC , others putting in maximum shots in KOs etc

Maybe WhS isn’t giving everyone a true reflection of their playing ability

Most of us that deal with handicaps would agree that the issue over lack of cards for newer members (or those that fail to declare previous playing ability) needs careful management by those organising comps. My own opinion is not allowing them to enter comps of their true handicap isn’t the answer. There is also the issue of older members who have passed their peek and are in the never ending ladder to a higher handicap.

Looking at the course card of the club that sent out that letter it’s hardly surprising that high handicappers have an unfair advantage. Splitting all their comps into division would solve their problem.

 

[JonnyGutteridge]

Not sure many members will pay to enter a comp that restricts them playing off their correct HC.

Our matchplay knockout is played to a max handicap of 18. Plenty of players with handicaps 19-28 happily enter, but they play off 18 in their matches.

On the subject of WHS, having 20 rounds in order to qualify for comps etc. Should something not also be done about players with like 15+ supplementary scores in their last 20 rounds? I honestly think a maximum of 5 supplementary cards should count towards your last 20 rounds.

I played a match recently where the chap had 16-17 supp cards during the last month and 3-4 competition rounds. His handicap had increased from circa 7.2 to 9.3 or something as a result.

Firstly, who plays 20 times in a month and gets 2 shots worse?
And secondly, he played like a 7 handicapper. It was painfully obvious... he was level par through 7 holes!! He had a major blowup on one hole, which yes, would have cost him any sort of score in a medal, but that kind of golfer is already dangerous in a matchplay, let alone when he gets a month worth of practice and an extra 2 shots!

Likewise, there's 1 or 2 people i've noticed with + handicaps who have 15 or so scores of level par in supplementary rounds. And 5 scores of 82 in the recent competitions, to make up their final 20. I will miss out on several competitions this year due to handicap ballots on over subscribed events, to people like that.

 

[Crazyface]

Quick question. A mate entered a wrong score on a supplementary score and pressed accept before I could stop him. This has dropped his HC by four shots. Not really problem as he doesn't play comps. Also he has only about seven scores entered, but the wrongly entered one is obviously counting along with one other that was a proper reasonable score. WHS is ignoring the rest. He'd like to get his HC to where it should be. Can this incorrectly entered score be removed?

 

[sweaty sock]

Confused by peoples attitudes to this

1. Lets play golf, but to keep everyone interested lets give some a head start. We cant get the headstarts correct for everyone all the time, even with a huge statistically based analysis taking into account all the data we have for millions of players, but hey its either that or...

2. Lets play golf, lowest score wins. Yes the handful of naturally gifted / dedicated / experienced players at the club will win more often than us that play once a week and dont practice. Thats the same as every other endeavour in life.

3. We, the statistical savants, can just change the system on gut feel, because well you know, we know best.

I think number 3 is by far the worst case.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Quick question. A mate entered a wrong score on a supplementary score and pressed accept before I could stop him. This has dropped his HC by four shots. Not really problem as he doesn't play comps. Also he has only about seven scores entered, but the wrongly entered one is obviously counting along with one other that was a proper reasonable score. WHS is ignoring the rest. He'd like to get his HC to where it should be. Can this incorrectly entered score be removed?

One for the handicap secretary. They will get it removed.

 

[rulefan]

Quick question. A mate entered a wrong score on a supplementary score and pressed accept before I could stop him. This has dropped his HC by four shots. Not really problem as he doesn't play comps. Also he has only about seven scores entered, but the wrongly entered one is obviously counting along with one other that was a proper reasonable score. WHS is ignoring the rest. He'd like to get his HC to where it should be. Can this incorrectly entered score be removed?

It can be corrected on the WHS platform.

 

[patricks148]

Can a player from another country play in one of the other union comps and the score still count for handicap or put in GP score on their apps on a course in another country?

 

[rulefan]

Our matchplay knockout is played to a max handicap of 18. Plenty of players with handicaps 19-28 happily enter, but they play off 18 in their matches.

Prior to WHS, England Golf had ruled that handicaps must not be limited in matchplay. However they have had to modify their stance as, in their words, "WHS will allow the capping of the Playing handicap, however it is our belief that this is against the spirit of the game and should be avoided if possible".

 

[rulefan]

Can a player from another country play in one of the other union comps and the score still count for handicap or put in GP score on their apps on a course in another country?

Yes to both but the various national systems don't yet communicate properly (or at all) so your score returns will have to be done via your club.

 

[jim8flog]

View attachment 37404

Is anyone surprised ?

I am to some extent. What is happening at you club is not happening at ours, a quick run through of our comps since July 2020 and the highest handicap of a winner is 21.6.

Why the limit to 26 in a divisional comp? I cannot understand why they do not simply change the divisions.

We pay out prize money according to the number of players in each division so it is not as if they are taking away the prize money for players with better handicap.

When handicaps went to 54, several years ago, we had a bit of an out cry because Open comp entry was often limited to 28.

 

[wjemather]

View attachment 37404

Is anyone surprised ?

Requesting players pay entry fees for competitions they are not allowed to win is just the icing on the cake. Embarrassing.

 

[Bdill93]

Requesting players pay entry fees for competitions they are not allowed to win is just the icing on the cake. Embarrassing.

20 cards in the system could take someone a year to build up too! Obviously not an inclusive club!

 

[IanM]

Requesting players pay entry fees for competitions they are not allowed to win is just the icing on the cake. Embarrassing.

That is rather daft...why would you hand over the money. Mind you most of us hand over a fiver every Saturday morning and know we won't win!

Putting comps in Divisions sorts this out. It is that simple. Scratch events are scratch events, even if you ballot folk out on numbers.

Given the volatility of new players handicaps, I can see the rationale for insisting folk have a certain number of cards in, but it needs handling sensitively and appropriately Some folk will get 20 cards a couple of months, others might takes much much longer!

Of course, this is another manifestation of authorities focusing on intent and ignoring the implications of what they were implementing.

 

[nickjdavis]

Whilst I'd say that looking at our results this summer the majority of winners are of higher handicaps, it is equally true that lower handicappers have been "in contention" and may only be a small handful of strokes away. The simple fact of the matter is though that there are far more members with handicaps of 16-24 (52%)than there are 0-15 (28%) so statistically its is likely that a higher handicap will win or place in any given competition.

I wonder how many clubs who are complaining about higher handicaps winning things have actually bothered to look deeply into the issue and determine the relative make-up handicap wise of the competition fields. If they have merely looked at the winners it may not be representational of the wider picture...really they would need to look at say the top 10 places to get a view of what is really happening....if these places are always dominated by higher handicappers then yes, there may well be an issue...bit without knowing the spread of handicaps in a field it is not possible to simply look at a result and say that an "out of proportion" number of higher handicaps are winning things.

We had a guy win div 3 of a medal on Sunday with a nett 59 (was also best nett overall). He has 80+ scores in his record and on Sunday had a playing handicap of 21. Before Sunday his previous 20 gross scores ranged from 88-102. On Sunday he shot a gross 80. If you went back historically through his scores from last summer and used the old Congu methodology of calculating his handicap then by my reckoning it would have dropped from 20.0 in June last year to 19.5 before Sunday. So under the old method he would have played off 20....so the WHS has afforded him just a single shot more than the Congu method would have done....hardly a passport to guaranteed victory. I've done similar analysis on other golfers and the only time I've seen significant variation is when a player has few scores in his records. The average playing handicap of golfers filling the top 10 places in the comp was 16. The average playing handicap of the field was 15....that does not seem disproportional to me.

So, whilst it is probably fair to say that players who have poorly developed records will have an index that is perhaps not reflective of their ability I do not see in practice any evidence that the WHS is giving golfers noticeably higher handicaps and therefore an unfair advantage over the rest of the field. I remember that when the first WHS Indexes were issued about 50% of our members had indexes within 1 shot either way of their current Congu Handicap, 30% had indexes that were lower by more than 1 shot and 20% had indexes higher by more than 1 shot. Again, hardly firm evidence that the WHS allocated higher handicaps than necessary.

To restrict a player from competing off his handicap, gained fairly under the rules of the system, is fundamentally unfair. If you believe that the system is failing, don't punish the players, lobby effectively for change.

 

[Beezerk]

I love this new system, gone up from 12.6 to 13.1 this year and I've only played in one comp ?
My goal of getting to 14 by the years end is right on track ?

 

[Bdill93]

Whilst I'd say that looking at our results this summer the majority of winners are of higher handicaps, it is equally true that lower handicappers have been "in contention" and may only be a small handful of strokes away. The simple fact of the matter is though that there are far more members with handicaps of 16-24 (52%)than there are 0-15 (28%) so statistically its is likely that a higher handicap will win or place in any given competition.

I wonder how many clubs who are complaining about higher handicaps winning things have actually bothered to look deeply into the issue and determine the relative make-up handicap wise of the competition fields. If they have merely looked at the winners it may not be representational of the wider picture...really they would need to look at say the top 10 places to get a view of what is really happening....if these places are always dominated by higher handicappers then yes, there may well be an issue...bit without knowing the spread of handicaps in a field it is not possible to simply look at a result and say that an "out of proportion" number of higher handicaps are winning things.

We had a guy win div 3 of a medal on Sunday with a nett 59 (was also best nett overall). He has 80+ scores in his record and on Sunday had a playing handicap of 21. Before Sunday his previous 20 gross scores ranged from 88-102. On Sunday he shot a gross 80. If you went back historically through his scores from last summer and used the old Congu methodology of calculating his handicap then by my reckoning it would have dropped from 20.0 in June last year to 19.5 before Sunday. So under the old method he would have played off 20....so the WHS has afforded him just a single shot more than the Congu method would have done....hardly a passport to guaranteed victory. I've done similar analysis on other golfers and the only time I've seen significant variation is when a player has few scores in his records. The average playing handicap of golfers filling the top 10 places in the comp was 16. The average playing handicap of the field was 15....that does not seem disproportional to me.

So, whilst it is probably fair to say that players who have poorly developed records will have an index that is perhaps not reflective of their ability I do not see in practice any evidence that the WHS is giving golfers noticeably higher handicaps and therefore an unfair advantage over the rest of the field. I remember that when the first WHS Indexes were issued about 50% of our members had indexes within 1 shot either way of their current Congu Handicap, 30% had indexes that were lower by more than 1 shot and 20% had indexes higher by more than 1 shot. Again, hardly firm evidence that the WHS allocated higher handicaps than necessary.

To restrict a player from competing off his handicap, gained fairly under the rules of the system, is fundamentally unfair. If you believe that the system is failing, don't punish the players, lobby effectively for change.

Interesting stuff Nick! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Deleted member 15344]

I am to some extent. What is happening at you club is not happening at ours, a quick run through of our comps since July 2020 and the highest handicap of a winner is 21.6.

Why the limit to 26 in a divisional comp? I cannot understand why they do not simply change the divisions.

We pay out prize money according to the number of players in each division so it is not as if they are taking away the prize money for players with better handicap.

When handicaps went to 54, several years ago, we had a bit of an out cry because Open comp entry was often limited to 28.

Just to confirm - this is not my club who have done this

We have removed all restrictions over the past 18 months

For example this Friday I will be giving someone 22 shots - previously it was a max of 18 , last year I would have only given in 9 but his HC went up a lot because he didn’t have 20 rounds in

We have divisions in medals and Stableford etc - have done for years

But we also have a number of board comps where there are no divisions

the winners so far are people who haven’t have 20 rounds on the system and whose HC went up ( a lot ) due to WHS