New handicap system

blue note

I don't think you are an outlier in relation to the minimum standard. I think most people agree with it as long as they're within it.

Ivefoundgod

Just had quick look at our handicap listing out of curiosity, approximately 17.7% of members are over 28 handicaps now that does include a significant number of lady members. That seems about right to me.

I'm not really interested in winning competitions, just not something that I care all that much about so I don't get annoyed about 'bandits' winning comps. I think the problem is massively overblown and while there have been some crazy examples shared here and on twitter I do still think they are few and far between. As blue note says without any data to back things up its just people going on a hunch which is no way to run golf in Ireland. I don't think WHS is to blame for cheating and don't think anything will eradicate that sort of thing. I do think Golf Ireland should take an active role in educating club handicap secretaries about what they should be doing and looking out for. Our handicap secretary does a very good job IMO and I haven't come across a player where I'd have said 'that guy should be off X instead of Y'.

I don't begrudge any competition winners, we can all have those days where things click for us. I don't really think its fair to be suspicious of players either unless there is significant reason to be doubtful. For those who take their competitions so seriously, looking at your own clubs comps during the year and forgetting about the twitter stories, would you have valid reasons to question any of those results? A higher handicap player winning a competition isn't grounds for suspicion IMO unless there's a clear pattern of handicap manipulation which is easily spotted on Golf Ireland.

spacecoyote

At a quick glance through the mens results in my place since we opened back up:

Stableford Comps:

Total events: 53

Average winning score: 41.8

Average winning Handicap: 19.4

Events won with a score of 44 or better: 19%

Events won by single digit: 11%

Events won by >28: 17%

Events won by >18: 55%

Stokes events (much smaller sample):

Total events: 8

Average winning net score: 65.25

Average winning Handicap: 18.9

Events won with a score of 67 or better: 87.5%

Events won by single digit: 12.5%

Events won by >28: 0%

Events won by >18: 62.5%

prawnsambo

Useful stats their spacecoyote. As a matter of interest, what's the breakdown of members entering competitions percentage-wise by those handicaps? Just wondering are the wins proportional to the entry.

I did a similar exercise in our club a couple of months back and by and large, the wins were proportional to the entry. There was a slight divergence at the lower end of handicaps where the win percentage was slightly higher than the entry.

spacecoyote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118085842#Comment_118085842

Would need to do a fair bit more digging to pull the entry breakdown. Might take a look at some other time when i have enough free time on my hands

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086250#Comment_118086250

Ah yeah, only if it's handy.

paulos53

Here are some similar numbers from my course.

I have split them between the white and blue tees. The blue tee comps were a mix of Stroke and Stableford so I converted the points to the equivalent stroke score.

Also the handicaps recorded in our results are the Playing Handicaps so that is what I have used here.

Stableford Comps White Tees:

Total events: 48

Average winning score: 42.5

Average winning Handicap: 16.1

Events won with a score of 44 or better: 35%

Events won by single digit: 15%

Events won by >28: 4%

Events won by >18: 33%

Stableford & Strokes Comps Blue Tees:

Total events: 9

Average winning net score (par 72): 68.7

Average winning Handicap: 15.7

Events won with a score of 67 or better: 22%

Events won by single digit: 0% (10-12 playing handicaps won 4 out of the 9. So 2 or 3 of them would have had single figure handicap indexes)

Events won by >28: 0%

Events won by >18: 44%

prawnsambo

And here are our ones. As per Paulos, only playing handicaps are used. But if you want to calculate the index, the slope rating for the tees used (in the majority) is 128. I've left out the comps off the back tees as they are a very different kettle of fish and higher handicaps tend not to enter.

Stableford Competitions (total 41)

Average winning score: 38.5

Average winning handicap: 16.9

Score of 44 points or more: 7%

Events won by <10 (PH): 24% (HI): 29%

Events won by >28: 7%

Events won by >18: 44%

Strokeplay Competitions (total 9)

Average winning score (par 72): 67.2

Average winning handicap: 14.8

Events won with a score of <=67: 55%

Events won by <10 (PH): 33%

Events won by >28: 0%

Events won by >18: 22% (this includes a 19 PH who would have had 17.6 HI)

spacecoyote

Mine above are purely based on PH too above

prawnsambo

Out of those three, it's pretty clear that people with handicaps greater than 28 are not winning a lot of competitions. Interesting that spacecoyote's club seems to be a bit of an outlier with those over 28 having more wins than single figure. I wonder is this a factor relating to the difficulty of the course?

FixdePitchmark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086840#Comment_118086840

Jesus - lads fair play putting them together - mathematically illustrates why overall competition is not for me and drives me nuts.

The average winning score is 42/43 (average 😲) - I genuinely couldn't be in a club like that. I'd imagine in clubs like that it is just too tempting if you were that way inclined to target a handicap that enables 42/43 points.

Sure as people are saying - the data will be there - and if the average winning pts is going up , the competitive aspect whilst previously hard for single figure players , is kinda gone now.

I only enter competitions to win - the handicap is a reference to my performance in them competitions.

spacecoyote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086840#Comment_118086840

Course has a slope of 125 off whites and 129 off blues.

Its fairly flat land, tight in spots and some tricky greens.

Probably a demographic issue have around 50 guys with PH of 9 or lower and around 140 off PH of 28 or higher

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086888#Comment_118086888

That's the average Fix. Look at the percentage over 44 points and the highest there is 35%. Which means that the vast majority are under that. 93% of scores are under that on my course and 27% are actually 36 points or lower.

I believe the biggest issue is actually the course ratings. Courses where the average points are high would likely be overrated, giving higher than needed playing handicaps. But also, you have to look at the number of entries in comps and the higher chances of a blowout score or two coming in.

I also guarantee you that if the same exercise was carried out on CONGU scores, you'd get similar enough results.

FixdePitchmark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086960#Comment_118086960

The average is still important mathematically - I could join your club - not the other 2.

Your club 33 % - that is very good.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086946#Comment_118086946

Ours is around 13% single digits and 9% 28 or over. Big difference there. 30% are between 10 and 20.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086990#Comment_118086990

Tough course. Always feel like Rory* when I go somewhere else. 😁

*This may be an exaggeration.

Edit: Just to note that yes, the average is important, but it's the average winning score. It's the best score on the day and they are always going to be high. You might have wins of 36 points or less, but they're never going to be the average.

twounderpar

Interesting article by John Craven in latest issue of IrishGolfer.ie. The comments are interesting also.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087968#Comment_118087968

A wildly inaccurate, almost clickbaity article. He says WHS introduced the 54 handicap. It didn't, it was in CONGU for at least two years before WHS and before that was there as a 'club only' internal handicap limit.

The chap must be very mathematically challenged if he thought the calculations were too hard. Seriously, if dividing and multiplying are beyond you, I'm surprised you can actually fill out a scorecard.

And the sob story about the handicap secretary who quit. Well good riddance to somebody who couldn't be arsed to actually control handicaps in their club. It's nuts to hear these people blame the system when the actual system gives them the power to actually do something about any perceived manipulation.

Sounds to me like a guy who was happy to let the manipulation go and then it got out of control. So he quit.

A really annoying article. Thanks for that 🤬

FixdePitchmark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087004#Comment_118087004

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088012#Comment_118088012

Agree

OEP

Lads you're going to ruin lots of people's fun by having actual data and not posting up 49 points on a Tuesday by a 30 handicapper and claiming the system is f****d. Can you export the data from master score board, just a regular user?

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088762#Comment_118088762

Unfortunately Master Scoreboard and the back-end: Handicap Master don't produce reports with the required data to analyse scores in this way. Believe me I looked. 😁

So I just went back through comps on MS and noted the winning score and handicap in a spreadsheet. Didn't really take long tbh, maybe half an hour. Once it was in a spreadsheet it was easy enough to pull the data.

OEP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088832#Comment_118088832

I did similar in the other thread. I'd like to pull all the entries for every competition and get some more insights - if I get really bored I might try write a script to do it!

spacecoyote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088832#Comment_118088832

Thats exactly same as i did. Bit of looking up and copying to excel

As an extra stat, the best scores in my place were:

Stableford: 47 off 30

Strokes: net 59 off 25 (on Captains coincidentally 😉)

Who's record looks mysteriously like this

wonga77

The handicap system is fine as long as people are not taking the piss.

However it's too easy to manipulate, I know of a few that are submitting 20, 21, 25 pts etc for 18 holes general play and then boom 39 in comps.

Id imagine there's players with plenty of red flags by their name for the end of year review

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089455#Comment_118089455

just refuse membership next year, sorted

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089455#Comment_118089455

Our best was also 47, but off 22 in an open competition by a visitor. Best strokes was 62 off 19. To be fair to the guy who had that strokes score, was playing continually on a team and had no time for comps and the manager of the team had them practising very regularly - they won the event, so all good. He's off 13 now and playing to it.

RoadRunner

LOL

spacecoyote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089516#Comment_118089516

Why would i refuse membership?

I posted stats about the comps, as are being discussed, and made an observation on the best scores recorded in events in my home club.

Call it sour grapes if you want, but the guy who won captains reputation is mud in the place. As one other member recently observed, he's won so many times in the winter league he could start a turkey farm. The first time I've seen him win a qualifying comp in years and its strokes, off the blues, course set up tough, on Captains day, and he beat his handicap by 13 strokes, having gotten his handicap to its highest ever level on his record the week before Captains. And who has already managed to tag back on 1.7 stokes to his index in the weeks since Captains.

NotCarrotRidge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089949#Comment_118089949

If it walks like a bandit and it quacks like....ok, well you know what I mean. You are right to feel aggrieved in this instance. Just don't paint all high handicappers with the same brush!

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118090359#Comment_118090359

Based on that graph, looks like he's around 16, so high handicappers not involved. Anecdotally, it's the mid-teen handicappers that are the worst offenders.