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IanM

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What's the point in spending a ton on lessons and kit if your up against a 30 plus handicapper. It's not the taking part that matters - it's the winning!!

I don't mind someone with a 40 handicap if they are a 40 handicap.

It's the 10 handicappers who engineer it to get themselves off 19 I worry about!
 

rulefan

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As has been mentioned by someone else in another thread: slope has increased the opportunity of mid/high range players to get relatively better scores
 

patricks148

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It's not handicappers over 28 that are winning at my club its guys now off low 20 that were off mid teens under the old system. Winning scores in stableford were always under 40 now score mid 40s are quite common.
 

IainP

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What's the point in spending a ton on lessons and kit if your up against a 30 plus handicapper. It's not the taking part that matters - it's the winning!!
Possible answer:
When you meet someone you don't know and conversation moves to you playing golf, do they ask you -
a) what your handicap (index) is?
b) how many 2 bit handicap comps you have won recently?
??
 

jim8flog

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The high handicap situation could be made more palatable if members were cut to the score they achieved. If a 28 handicapper plays to 16 off the white tees in a comp rather than lob off 2/3 shots shouldn't he be cut to 16??

So you want it to go back to Pre UHS days when your best score became your handicap (as I understood it). . When the UHS came in it was already recognised that far too many players had handicaps that were far too low for their ability. I was never handicapped under that system but it would have made me +3 golfer and one thing is for sure that I was never a plus 3 handicap golfer, that is professional level.
.
CONGU have stated that players should not be over penalised for 'one day in the sun'.
 

nickjdavis

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Average winning stableford score in comps this year at my place is 42.3 points.

Last year the average winning score was 42.5 points and we missed out most of the peak summer as no comps were held from mid march through to early August.

Just not seeing the vast ramp up in scores being reported by others.
 

rosecott

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Surely that has to win the prize. A 6 o_O.

A 5 blew me away but a 6............:oops:

How forced was your smile when you saw / heard that or could you just not fake it?

It's several years ago now, but I played behind one of our 26-handicappers who scored 2 for 7 points on a 520 yard par 5.
Surely that has to win the prize. A 6 o_O.

A 5 blew me away but a 6............:oops:

How forced was your smile when you saw / heard that or could you just not fake it?

I have just dug out something I posted 10 years ago:

"Something I have never seen before in 59 years playing golf.

One of our Seniors (27 handicap and plays 2 qualifiers a week) is known to be a very big hitter but normally pretty wayward. Today, on our 5th hole (a 503 yard par 5, SI8), he scored 2 for 0 for 7 points. They never saw the ball go in the hole - it was from 240 yards away - but there it was sitting in the hole.

Not content with that, he also had a 2 on the 8th hole (a 304 yard par 4) but that was only 2 for 1 for 5 points (he sunk a wedge from 120 yards). He got chopped 1 shot as, apart from 12 points on 2 holes, he only scored 26 on the remaining 16 holes. "
 

richbeech

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Every single comp (bar Club Champs which is a scratch competition) has been won by a mid to high handicap golfers at my club. Whilst the comps haven't been won with really silly scores, trying to shoot 42-43 points round our track off even 5 or 6 is incredibly difficult. For some of the really low guys they would have to be going out there and shooting the course record almost every week to compete.
 

IanMcC

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Every single comp (bar Club Champs which is a scratch competition) has been won by a mid to high handicap golfers at my club. Whilst the comps haven't been won with really silly scores, trying to shoot 42-43 points round our track off even 5 or 6 is incredibly difficult. For some of the really low guys they would have to be going out there and shooting the course record almost every week to compete.
I checked all of the Sunday comps at our club this season so far, ignoring the Scratch Champs. The winners had the following handicaps:

10, 11, 13, 31, 24, 34, 17, 13, 6, 12, 15, 22, 15, 3, 20, 11 and 20.

Our divisional cut off is 14 and below, and 15 and above. 8 winners from Div 1 and 9 winners from Div 2.
I dont know your definition of a 'mid to high handicapper', but this looks an acceptable range of winners to me.
 

rulefan

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I checked all of the Sunday comps at our club this season so far, ignoring the Scratch Champs. The winners had the following handicaps:

10, 11, 13, 31, 24, 34, 17, 13, 6, 12, 15, 22, 15, 3, 20, 11 and 20.

Our divisional cut off is 14 and below, and 15 and above. 8 winners from Div 1 and 9 winners from Div 2.
I dont know your definition of a 'mid to high handicapper', but this looks an acceptable range of winners to me.
Are the divisions based on Handicap Index or Course/Playing Handicap?

It would be more interesting to know the proportions of div 1 and div 2 players in the field.
CONGU has always maintained the probability of a player from a particular handicap range winning is related to the proportion of entrants in that range
 

IanMcC

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Divisions are based on Playing Handicap.
I looked at our last 7 Sundays. Division 1 always had more players. The percentages of Div 1 players was 61, 67, 59, 70, 62, 76 and 67. Average field size is about 90.
I remember looking at these figures some time back, wondering if the Divisional split point had to be moved a little.
I came to the conclusion that it was OK as it was. As stated previously, the Div 2 players still get their fair share of wins, and also the fact that a Div 2 player never wins the best gross prize means to me that the balance is about right.
From my figures, over this admittedly small survey, the CONGU theory about proportion of entrants doesn't really hold up.
 

eddie_1878

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Been playing casually without a handicap this summer. Finally put my three qualifying cards in to get an official handicap so I can enter comps etc.

The three cards I put in were poor rounds, all over 90, which I was worrying would give me a higher handicap than what I generally play to- I break 90 at least half my rounds now. Nevertheless I popped them in to get a starting point. It’s given me a 17.1!

Not a complaint as I’ve been playing off 18 non-officially but I can’t for the life of me figure out how they got 17 based off the cards I’d handed in?

Someone mentioned they don’t count nightmare holes, which were what killed my rounds, which might explain it?
 

jim8flog

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Been playing casually without a handicap this summer. Finally put my three qualifying cards in to get an official handicap so I can enter comps etc.

The three cards I put in were poor rounds, all over 90, which I was worrying would give me a higher handicap than what I generally play to- I break 90 at least half my rounds now. Nevertheless I popped them in to get a starting point. It’s given me a 17.1!

Not a complaint as I’ve been playing off 18 non-officially but I can’t for the life of me figure out how they got 17 based off the cards I’d handed in?

Someone mentioned they don’t count nightmare holes, which were what killed my rounds, which might explain it?

It is only the best card of the 3 that is used, any hole more than twice the par gets reduce to twice the par you then get approx 90% of the score compared to the course rating and not the par.

As you add more cards for the next 2 if the card or the one after beats that your handicap will then be based upon that card. Once you get 6 cards in it gets more complicated and your handicap will not settle down until you have abut 25/16 cards in the system.
 

nickjdavis

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Are the divisions based on Handicap Index or Course/Playing Handicap?

It would be more interesting to know the proportions of div 1 and div 2 players in the field.
CONGU has always maintained the probability of a player from a particular handicap range winning is related to the proportion of entrants in that range

...and in any analysis of results at my club that I've ever undertaken, I have reached the same conclusions.
 

Ye Olde Boomer

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Handicap players by design, reasonably in my view, don't get all the shots that they'd normally need to win.
Only their better rounds are calculated into the index.

As for for rating/slope factors converting index to handicap, they're way more bunched together than accurately reflects the true degrees of course difficulty.

When the stroke giver loses, it's more often that he/she didn't play well than the stroke receiver had a great day.

That's my experience in decades of golf.
 

eddie_1878

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It is only the best card of the 3 that is used, any hole more than twice the par gets reduce to twice the par you then get approx 90% of the score compared to the course rating and not the par.

As you add more cards for the next 2 if the card or the one after beats that your handicap will then be based upon that card. Once you get 6 cards in it gets more complicated and your handicap will not settle down until you have abut 25/16 cards in the system.

Cheers Jim.
 

tobybarker

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I suspect what we are seeing is not the SAME high handicappers winning reach week, just any old high handicappers..... In other words, the normal 'once on a blue moon' round we can all have, but people are blaming WHS (why do I always read that as WH SMITHs?) Because they want to. That's my impression anyway.
 

Oddsocks

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My new club not so much as the average s/ford win is around 40pts, but my old club people are winning with high 40’s and these are often high cappers.

The question has been asked if the scores are in fact genuine as often these are from high handicap players new to the game who play in the same small group, so are the rules actually being adhered to?
 

rulefan

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My new club not so much as the average s/ford win is around 40pts, but my old club people are winning with high 40’s and these are often high cappers.

The question has been asked if the scores are in fact genuine as often these are from high handicap players new to the game who play in the same small group, so are the rules actually being adhered to?
Is your old club's h'cap committee doing its job?
 
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