Winter Golf and Handicap

[Backsticks]

The people who do the course ratings only care about how long it is and they pretty much ignore everything else.

Its not about caring as such, its that analysis proves distance is the diminating factor. The same effect that gives a straight line correlation between how far you hit it, and your HI.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

From an earlier post
"Pure vanity makes our club have qualifiers all winter."

But it's not "pure vanity", WHS doesn't take into account winter conditions and for most folks playing will increase their handicaps, significantly if they can do a full 20+. You then come to summer and you're far too high and scooping everything.

It's a huge flaw in the system, allied to handicaps rising too fast. It doesn't reflect your current form as claimed, it reflects the dip in form you *were* in.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Given golf was (allegedly) invented in Scotland. Surely ‘proper’ golf is playing in cold, windy and wet conditions.

How ignorant and tiresome

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Its not about caring as such, its that analysis proves distance is the diminating factor. The same effect that gives a straight line correlation between how far you hit it, and your HI.

Except the issues with course ratings between various courses prove that it isn't distance that's the biggest factor

 

[Orikoru]

But it's not "pure vanity", WHS doesn't take into account winter conditions and for most folks playing will increase their handicaps, significantly if they can do a full 20+. You then come to summer and you're far too high and scooping everything.

It's a huge flaw in the system, allied to handicaps rising too fast. It doesn't reflect your current form as claimed, it reflects the dip in form you *were* in.

Completely agree. If you put in a card for every round, you can have a new handicap by April that's entirely based on muddy or frozen courses from November through to March. For higher handicappers that struggle with distance already that's almost guaranteed to be a few shots higher because of this handicap system where you can shoot up quickly.

 

[wjemather]

Except the issues with course ratings between various courses prove that it isn't distance that's the biggest factor

There isn't a single study that doesn't confirm the strong correlation between distance and scoring.

 

[rulefan]

The people who do the course ratings only care about how long it is and they pretty much ignore everything else.

So 3 or 4 guys walk round a course for a few hours, measuring and recording this, that and virtually everything else. Having finished the walk, they cross check all the figures and send them off the the national body where all the figures are entered into a system. But it only uses the tee to green distances.
All the raters get out of it is possibly a cup of tea and a sandwich.
Perhaps that is why some counties are having trouble recruiting rating teams.

 

[Deleted member 29109]

How ignorant and tiresome

have you misplaced your sense of humour?

 

[Deleted member 29109]

But it's not "pure vanity", WHS doesn't take into account winter conditions and for most folks playing will increase their handicaps, significantly if they can do a full 20+. You then come to summer and you're far too high and scooping everything.

It's a huge flaw in the system, allied to handicaps rising too fast. It doesn't reflect your current form as claimed, it reflects the dip in form you *were* in.

Has anyone supplied any actual evidence that putting scores in in winter will significantly increase most people’s handicaps?

 

[rulefan]

Has anyone supplied any actual evidence that putting scores in in winter will significantly increase most people’s handicaps?

It's a well known fact.

 

[abjectplop]

Given golf was (allegedly) invented in Scotland. Surely ‘proper’ golf is playing in cold, windy and wet conditions.

Those saying winter golf isn’t ‘proper’ golf, but summer golf is have things the wrong way round

See below from the Scottishgolfhistory.org site, golf was indeed a winter sport!

Because there were no mechanical grass cutters before the mid-nineteenth century, golf was predominantly played in winter when the grass was naturally short following animal grazing. The links area on the east coast was accessible to the golfers of the time and coincides with the area of minimal rainfall in Scotland. With its better drainage, links land is therefore more suitable for winter play and was less damaging to the early leather stitched golf balls that were used.

 

[Swango1980]

Distance surely MUST be the biggest factor in handicaps (hence why this is the case when you get your ratings)? On most people's good days of golf, and the scores that count towards their handicaps, they will probably get themselves into less trouble with the various obstacles on the course. Sure, on a bad day they can destroy me. But on a good day, I can avoid pretty much all of them, or if I don't, I manage to limit the damage by negotiating them well. There are plenty of days I find I haven't hit one bunker, or at worst I might get in one or 2 but get out reasonably well and don't damage my score.

However, I can never avoid distance. And if you are comparing the abilities of a good and a bad golfer, the gulf in shots between them will get bigger and bigger the longer the distance they have to play. After all, you are giving a lot more yardage to knock that little ball around 18 holes, where the weaknesses of the bad player have more distance to cover and exhibit themselves. And even if you are comparing 2 courses for a single golfer (say a scratch golfer), it makes perfect sense that if one course rating is a good bit higher than the other, then it is because the yardage of the course with the highest CR in longer. It is more unlikely to be because the course with the highest CR simply has more bunkers and penalty areas. There may be extreme cases where a course is absolutely littered with obstacles and hence causes a bigger increase in ratings compared to what one would expect. But generally, the further you've got to knock around the ball and hole out on 18 holes, the more shots it would be expected to take.

Compare the 1st hole of my last course and current as an example, and their probable contribution to the overall CR. Old course, 330 yard par 4, dogleg right. Drive, usually into the wind, and have to carry about 180 yards over pond. OB left and right, and even before OB on each side, really thick trees and nasty rough. If you get over pond, you might have thick trees to hit it over to green if you didn't hit it far enough. Even if not, OB just left of green, bunkers short left and right guarding green and thick trees over back. Current course, 450 yard par 4. Massive wide fairway, but findable even if you go right, and you have to hit it a long way left to go OB. Wide fairway all the way to hole. Up hill to green, though only a bunker short left. So, for me the hole at my old course would be the toughest opening hole I've played. So much can go wrong, and I've seen scores closer to 20 than 10. I've certainly had a few 8's and 9's and even been in double figures. But, it is easier to get a par than current course, simply by fact it is easily makeable in 2 if you don't mess up. Although current course is difficult to get a par as very few can get there in 2, it can almost be considered a ridiculously easy par 5 and so you are less likely to get a cricket score on it than old course. So, given that the CR contribution for the 450 yard par 4 will almost certainly be higher than the one for the 330 yard par 4, it doesn't mean it is more likely going to destroy you on a bad day. It just means that on your good days, you will just find it easier to score lower on the 330 yard par 4. In other words, yardage becomes the biggest factor in how many shots you can get round a course on a decent day of golf.

 

[D-S]

Roughly speaking, for men, 300 yards is only 1.3 strokes. However, many of the rules and course conditions that prevail in winter offset this to various degrees, including: preferred lies and other "winter rules", easier rough (shorter, less thick), softer greens (more receptive, play bigger), slower greens, soft fairways (play wider), bare trees (less obstructive), etc.

This would suggest that distance, though the largest factor, can easily offset by other factors.

I would guess that the lack of roll in drives of around 15-20 yards increases course length by 14 drives x 17 yards = 238 yards, (I won’t even factor in lack of roll on other shots) plus the 10 to 15 degree colder temperatures making the ball fly say 4 or 5% less is around 250 yards, so courses can easily play 500 yards or more longer.

 

[wjemather]

This would suggest that distance, though the largest factor, can easily offset by other factors.

I would guess that the lack of roll in drives of around 15-20 yards increases course length by 14 drives x 17 yards = 238 yards, (I won’t even factor in lack of roll on other shots) plus the 10 to 15 degree colder temperatures making the ball fly say 4 or 5% less is around 250 yards, so courses can easily play 500 yards or more longer.

These other factors make a bigger difference to the Bogey Rating, and hence Slope, than the Course Rating.

Standard roll (for rating purposes) in normal conditions is only 20 yards; in soft conditions that would only be reduced by up to 10 yards.

 

[Captain_Black.]

Completely agree. If you put in a card for every round, you can have a new handicap by April that's entirely based on muddy or frozen courses from November through to March. For higher handicappers that struggle with distance already that's almost guaranteed to be a few shots higher because of this handicap system where you can shoot up quickly.

This is what I have found at my club.
The rough is brutal, it's a long course & it's boggy.
But, they will play qualifiers right through winter, some of the older guys only bimble it 150 yards in the summer, at the moment they will be lucky to get it past the ladies tee's.
I dread to think what their h/c will be in April.

 

[Swango1980]

Probably a good job our course doesn't accept scores at the moment. The ladies played a competition today. 10 players in the field, last place was 40 points, first place was 64 points.

 

[clubchamp98]

WHS suits countries with consistent warmer weather.

While the weather here might be nice in winter the ground conditions vary a lot.

Its why parts of the USA and Australia are widely mentioned in any discussion about WHS.

Maybe WHS needs to have a winter clause so it can’t wipe your summer scores off completely.

Next comp might be who can go up the most in Winter.

 

[IanM]

Hooray!!

Just had an email from the club saying it was no longer compulsory to enter the qualifying comp if you play before 1pm on a Saturday. This will be reviewed on 1st Feb.


We have a comp EVERY blooming Saturday.

 

[clubchamp98]

Probably a good job our course doesn't accept scores at the moment. The ladies played a competition today. 10 players in the field, last place was 40 points, first place was 64 points.

Was it 36 holes ?

Even in winter that’s a very silly score!

 

[Golfnut1957]

Well, the only explanation for that is, if true, is that the Ratings are simply incorrect. That is, if there is truly very little difference between the expected scoring of both courses, then why are the Ratings so significantly different? Obviously that isn't something that anyone here can answer without knowing your course and being aware of how Ratings are set. However, given the process is meant to be pretty much independent of subjectivity and quite a logical and factual process to enable consistency, then if the Ratings for one course are actually wrong, then this could just as equally apply to the ratings between 2 different courses generally, simply over the summer season. That would be more concerning, and I expect that there is probably a justifiable reason why the Ratings are different, unless the Ratings Team have made some sort of silly error?

I'm not sure that I understand your point, which probably means that my post wasn't particularly clear.

We only have one course but it actually has multiple rating. The summer course has ratings for the white, yellow and red tees. When this course gets saturated two of the holes and two other greens are closed and two winters greens plus two par 3's constructed for this very purpose, are introduced. This new (winter) course has three sets of tees blue, orange and green.

The difference in length between the summer white and the winter blues is 1039 yards, but 617 of them are the difference between the two par 4' that are closed and the two par threes that replace them. This means the difference between the other 16 holes from summer to winter is 422 yards which averages out at 26 yards per hole shorter in the winter, and that isn't spread out evenly. When taking into consideration the conditions, the bulk of the course plays considerably longer in the winter than the summer.

Now if you take the CR and slope for the two which are Summer Whites Par, 71 Slope 130, CR 71 and then the winter blues which are Par 69, Slope 114, CR 65.1, you can see a considerable difference, which while almost certainly is the product of the reduction in overall length surely doesn't take into consideration the fact that 89% of the course is the same as the summer course minus 26 yards per hole.

One last thing. The bad weather of last winter continued into early spring and the first of our comps were played on the winter course. My mate who has an index of 9.3 submitted three cards during this period with differentials of 18.1, 18.1 & 12, a small sample I know, but it would produce a HI of 16. His scores of 86, 86 & 80 are comparable with his average this year of 85. If he/we/any member of my club put GP cards in every time we played during the winter handicaps would increase significantly. This increase would not be a reflection on our true ability, but a HI based on the difference in CR/Slope between the two courses.

One really last thing. Vanity plays no part in not submitting cards during the winter. If the conditions were suitable and there have been years when it has happened, and we had the chance to play the summer course there is every chance GP cards would be submitted, but on the winter course? You'd have to be mad.