handicap adjustement for golf society

afternoon everyone,

after recently returning from our golf society 5 day trip to the borders in scotland there were several issues brought up regarding (in particular) my handicap.

my home course handicap is 13 but its a difficult course to play to a lower handicap with loads of water etc. I have another club membership through my work and would estimate to play off around 8 at this other course, although they do not allow corporate members to obtain an official club handicap. i regularly go around in the high 70s/low 80s and the course has a SSS of 72.

when we go away the society organiser has an adjustment system for each days play. for example, there were 11 guys playing in the borders. 1st place would be cut 4 shots, 2nd place 3, 3rd place 2, 4th place 1, 5th place would remain the same, 6th place would gain one stroke, 7th would gain 2 etc. Needless to say i was playing off 7 on the fourth and final day of competition and played steady golf shooting an 80 around torwoodlee which meant i won the outright competition by 6 strokes.

i was just wondering if there was anyone else that was a society orgainiser or someone who regularly plays in a society that might have another way of adjusting handicaps to make the competition a little fairer for the others in the group. i have now won the trophey for the last 3 trips and people are starting to get vexed!

i have suggested a monthly adjuster game which would adjust my course handicap in time for the april trip to north berwick, but some of the guys in the group would find it difficult to make every month because of work commitments etc and i like the system we have in place now with the adjustments been made daily on the trips

any thoughts would be appreciated.....

How about you all play off scratch and the person who is best at golf wins?

I always get a bit pee'd off when people complain about other people's handicaps and I can never understand people who get competitive when playing in a handicap competition as any "win" is clearly pretty meaningless.

hi hibbz,

the lower handicappers in the group often play off scratch but the older guys in the group who play off 24 and 26 would never stand a chance, hence the reason why i like the system we have in place now.

its designed to give anyone playing to thier handicap over the 4 days a real chance of the prizes and trophy, and its something that i often do.

just tired of all the bitching and moaning about handicaps now and was hoping someone would have a new and radical way of changing it. :-(

Draw, I'd hazard a guess that regardless of how you designed the system there would be an equal amount of bitching and moaning from the same people.

hibbz, have you sneakily been away with the group i play with and i just didnt notice you? lol. youre right, there are some bad losers in the group and i dont think the bad mouthing will ever be fully erradicated.

Hibbz

I respect that point of view, however, the handicapping system is supposed to level the playing field. I play in an Autumn tour each year, there are around 150 people playing and our little group of 10 to 12 have a few pounds on the daily outcome plus individual bets and it is a little galling when someone takes the money off others every year due to having what the remainder consider is a dodgy handicap. I do participate in the £5 bet over the tour, but I do not place any individual bets with anyone becasue I wont single out this one person and say I'll bet with everyone but you!

This does not help the OP. We all play off official club handicaps, this player's club is known for having dogdy handicaps (to the extent that another of its members thanked his handicap committee in a winner's acceptance speech on one occasion!) and we are considering introducing society type cuts for the tour next year.

I thought golf was supposed to be a reflection of life. It was supposed to teach people integrity, honesty and acceptance. But then it has the handicap system which is basically cheating. Bizarre.

I'm not sure which I find more irritating, low handicap players who complain about giving away too many shots (well don't play in handicap competitions knobhead), or high handicap players who complain about not getting enough shots (well get better at golf then knobhead).

Hibbz wrote:I'm not sure which I find more irritating, low handicap players who complain about giving away too many shots (well don't play in handicap competitions knobhead), or high handicap players who complain about not getting enough shots (well get better at golf then knobhead).

So right! Genius!

I'm a mid-handicapper who can moan both ways, and I'm definitely a knob-head.

I help organize a friendly outing at work each year. Usually 12 to 16 players with ability ranging from two guys who regularly shoot in the 70 s to a guy who is lucky if he beaks 130. Very few have handicaps. We have prizes for low gross and for low Callawaynet (found the formula on the Internet). But the winner of the trophy is determined by a formula we made up ourselves. At the après golf lunch in the bar we pick 4 holes from the front 9 at random. For each golfer we calculate their avg relative to par for those 4 holes. Then we calculate their avg relative to par for the back 9. Finally we take the difference between those two numbers to see who made the biggest improvement from the front nine (as measured by the 4 holes) to the back 9. That golfer gets the trophy and bragging rights for the year.

This favors the high handicappers since the better players tend to be more consistent. Each year so far we have had a different winner. Everyone has a good chance of winning ( except the best players and they don't care anyway as they just want to score well). Only problem is that we have to take a laptop with us to figure out the prizes, so we look a bit geeky in the bar !