World Handicap System (WHS)

[upsidedown]

From my New Zealand experience over 6 winters , the "oldies" over winter would go up due to less roll and cooler temps etc but never more than 3-4 shots , one good score in the better weather and then back to normal

 

[Swango1980]

From my New Zealand experience over 6 winters , the "oldies" over winter would go up due to less roll and cooler temps etc but never more than 3-4 shots , one good score in the better weather and then back to normal

Cheers, good to know from experience. 3-4 shots is still quite high, and that is presumably for honest golfers. I guess these guys are in with a shout of winning their first competition back, before their handicap goes back down?

I will recommend to our competition secretary to move the men versus seniors trophy from the start to the end of the season

 

[nickjdavis]

I
I didn't dismiss this Duncan. I addressed it precisely in the next post.

There is no way a golfer would put in 20 supplementary cards over the winter currently, and then have the handicap secretary give them the extra 3-4 shots under continuous review before the next season to match what WHS would automatically give them. If this did happen, good luck to the handicap secretary when he defends his decision.

Stop moving the goalposts...your scenario mentioned NOTHING about the time of year so your comment about not putting in cards over the winter is simply a smokescreen. The golfing season is also irrelevant....some of us play at courses where we play qualifiers and submit supplementaries all year round.

Why do you seem to assume that the protections that exist in the current CONGU mechanism wont exist under WHS? Do you really believe that a handicap secretary wont spot that a steady 5 handicap golfer who maybe plays twice a week, suddenly puts in 20 rounds in 4 weeks...all of them significantly worse than his previous form?

No one is ignoring your simple mathematics....what we are ignoring are the contrived scenarios that you are creating in order to prove your point.

 

[Swango1980]

People have played the system by playing a round to get .1 back to gain a single shot before a KO or comp , or they just play the three rounds a year and then go and play opens

No one will be putting in 20 deliberatly poor rounds just to get shots back in the manner you suggest - it’s just not going to happen so why worry

Yes, some people do submit a card to go up 0.1, if they are on x.4. So, a 10% chance of them.being in a position to benefit from this. Under WHS, I could hand in 4 cards to get over 2 full shots back based on my last 20 scores personally. I'd imagine the people you talk about will he licking their lips about this.

 

[Swango1980]

Stop moving the goalposts...your scenario mentioned NOTHING about the time of year so your comment about not putting in cards over the winter is simply a smokescreen. The golfing season is also irrelevant....some of us play at courses where we play qualifiers and submit supplementaries all year round.

Why do you seem to assume that the protections that exist in the current CONGU mechanism wont exist under WHS? Do you really believe that a handicap secretary wont spot that a steady 5 handicap golfer who maybe plays twice a week, suddenly puts in 20 rounds in 4 weeks...all of them significantly worse than his previous form?

No one is ignoring your simple mathematics....what we are ignoring are the contrived scenarios that you are creating in order to prove your point.

Did you not read my question? It was, as handicap secretary, what can I do about it? Yes, it is easy for you to point out that it would be obvious that a 5 handicapper has quickly gone up to 10. So, my question is, do I simply manually put it back to 5?

 

[nickjdavis]

I lost the meat of your question in amongst the maths!!

I would have thought that the moment you as handicap secretary saw a sudden increase in frequency of rounds, played well outside his current ability, that you would engage with the player in question to ascertain if there was an issue that was contributing to

1) his sudden downturn in form
2) the sudden increase in playing frequency

Its no issue to make him aware, that you are aware, of what is happening. He may just think again about his "actions". If he reacts badly then you can be confident that your suspicions are probably correct.

Any player with a genuine issue would not have a problem with your approach.

 

[Swango1980]

I lost the meat of your question in amongst the maths!!

I would have thought that the moment you as handicap secretary saw a sudden increase in frequency of rounds, played well outside his current ability, that you would engage with the player in question to ascertain if there was an issue that was contributing to

1) his sudden downturn in form
2) the sudden increase in playing frequency

Its no issue to make him aware, that you are aware, of what is happening. He may just think again about his "actions". If he reacts badly then you can be confident that your suspicions are probably correct.

Any player with a genuine issue would not have a problem with your approach.

Thanks. I certainly would take that approach. I guess my only issue would be is that, if I was unlucky enough to have a genuine cheat on my hands, they may simply day they're playing badly, and I'll have to make a subjective decision. Such as, can I reject any more cards, or recind ones already submitted? I guess this will become clear at the workshop on WHS.

I suppose the issue may become more tricky if it is ever decided golfers are recommended to submit all social golf as well. Not sure if that will happen, but if it does, I wouldn't be able to make conclusions based on the sudden volume of supplementary cards coming in, given they'll be coming left right and centre.

 

[rulefan]

From my New Zealand experience over 6 winters , the "oldies" over winter would go up due to less roll and cooler temps etc but never more than 3-4 shots , one good score in the better weather and then back to normal

I don't think the NZ system has the equivalent of the PCC (Playing Conditions Calculation for some) or CSS (Competition Standard Scratch) .

 

[upsidedown]

I don't think the NZ system has the equivalent of the PCC (Playing Conditions Calculation for some) or CSS (Competition Standard Scratch) .

It's been nearly 7 years since we left now so can't really remember but no don't think so . Been looking at my old clubs scores and members and their HI's are pretty consistent with 2-3 shot ( probably not the right phrase but most folks know what I mean ) variance

 

[upsidedown]

Thanks. I certainly would take that approach. I guess my only issue would be is that, if I was unlucky enough to have a genuine cheat on my hands, they may simply day they're playing badly, and I'll have to make a subjective decision. Such as, can I reject any more cards, or recind ones already submitted? I guess this will become clear at the workshop on WHS.

I suppose the issue may become more tricky if it is ever decided golfers are recommended to submit all social golf as well. Not sure if that will happen, but if it does, I wouldn't be able to make conclusions based on the sudden volume of supplementary cards coming in, given they'll be coming left right and centre.

Remember you will have your committee to help you .

 

[rulefan]

It's been nearly 7 years since we left now so can't really remember but no don't think so . Been looking at my old clubs scores and members and their HI's are pretty consistent with 2-3 shot ( probably not the right phrase but most folks know what I mean ) variance

I've checked. It doesn't. That should make a difference in winter. I don't know how much but it seemed to work successfully in Australia. But admittedly the winter weather is different.
As we generally play few qualifiers here (I know, I know, down sarf they do get better weather and do play), i would suggest that the CSS could well be at least a couple of shots above SSS if we did. Perhaps a Cornish player can tell us if there is a noticeable increase in CSS during the winter. I know up here we had a lot of ROs when it started raining.

 

[Swango1980]

Remember you will have your committee to help you .

Yeah, happy with that. Just curious as to what happens next. At moment, we could just decide to change the players handicap to an appropriate value. But, under WHS, not sure that is possible, because it is based on last 20 scores. If I were to simply change the handicap, and then the player submits another card, not quite sure how it calculates the handicap given I have just ignored his last 19 scores. I'm sure there will be some calculation, as I think annual Review will still exist in some form

 

[Swango1980]

I've checked. It doesn't. That should make a difference in winter. I don't know how much but it seemed to work successfully in Australia. But admittedly the winter weather is different.
As we generally play few qualifiers here (I know, I know, down sarf they do get better weather and do play), i would suggest that the CSS could well be at least a couple of shots above SSS if we did. Perhaps a Cornish player can tell us if there is a noticeable increase in CSS during the winter. I know up here we had a lot of ROs when it started raining.

Our winter comps CSS is usually equal SSS, or 1 lower. Only one qualifier this winter due to weather, were CSS was sSS-1. I think a lot of golfers generally enjoy the shorter course due to it being yellow tees, and balls tend to stick to fairway rather than bounce into rough or trees.

 

[nickjdavis]

Yeah, happy with that. Just curious as to what happens next. At moment, we could just decide to change the players handicap to an appropriate value. But, under WHS, not sure that is possible, because it is based on last 20 scores. If I were to simply change the handicap, and then the player submits another card, not quite sure how it calculates the handicap given I have just ignored his last 19 scores. I'm sure there will be some calculation, as I think annual Review will still exist in some form

There is a mechanism in the new system that allows a once off "manual adjustment" by the handicap secretary to be appropriately built in to the last 20 scores so it is included in all ongoing handicap calculations.

 

[rulefan]

as I think annual Review will still exist in some form

"It is strongly recommended that the Handicap Committee conducts a handicap review at least once every calendar year"

 

[Swango1980]

"It is strongly recommended that the Handicap Committee conducts a handicap review at least once every calendar year"

That may simply be the answer then. If a golfer suddenly gets a big increase after an influx of cards over a month or 2, then the Handicap Committee can simply adjust the Handicap Index back down, even outside your normal Annual Review. I'd be interested to understand the workings of that, in terms of how that impacts your previous scores and future adjustments when more scores are entered. As nickjdavis suggests. maybe it just makes background adjustments to those previous 20 scores, which then apply as the player enters more scores.

It would be nice if there was an automated system to somehow highlight potential strange increases, such like the Continuous Review or the calculations made during Annual Review that are made to highlight players (but obviously different calcs due to the different system). After all, my examples above, although easyish for a player to do, should also stand out like a sore thumb, especially if they are one of the few entering supplementary cards. However, sometimes players might be a little cuter about it, and maybe not get such an extreme increase as 5 shots. Maybe that will be some years off, until we all get used to the quirks of the system. After all, Continuous Review and ESR took quite some time to be introduced to the CONGU system, but certainly helped improve it (in my opinion)

 

[nickjdavis]

I've checked. It doesn't. That should make a difference in winter. I don't know how much but it seemed to work successfully in Australia. But admittedly the winter weather is different.
As we generally play few qualifiers here (I know, I know, down sarf they do get better weather and do play), i would suggest that the CSS could well be at least a couple of shots above SSS if we did. Perhaps a Cornish player can tell us if there is a noticeable increase in CSS during the winter. I know up here we had a lot of ROs when it started raining.

Would a Suffolk player do (especially as we are the 2nd driest county in the country!!) ???

Since 2011, dividng the year up into quarters our CSS has moved on average...

DEC-FEB : +1.27 (taking out a couple of statistical outliers this actually comes down to 0.95)
MAR-MAY: +0.52
JUN-AUG: +0.05
SEP-NOV: +0.34

(there were no obvious statistical outliers in the other 3 quarters)

 

[rulefan]

Thanks. Lower than I expected.
Was the DEC-FEB this winter or last?

 

[duncan mackie]

Thanks. Lower than I expected.
Was the DEC-FEB this winter or last?

Also, from a Kent perspective, we tend to ease the teeing area strain by using more forward tees in the winter (within the permitted scope obviously) and I've noticed many other courses in the area do the same thing.
We have year round Q

 

[rulefan]

Also, from a Kent perspective, we tend to ease the teeing area strain by using more forward tees in the winter (within the permitted scope obviously) and I've noticed many other courses in the area do the same thing.
We have year round Q

Probably keeping any CSS adjustment down?