Your New WHS Index

I’m gonna do that when I play sawgrass and bayhill 😀

it was Ballyliffen

Club committees have a few options when players don't return their scores after a round. Applying a penalty score would be one of those options.

My own club have said they will suspend repeat offenders from club competitions for a month.

As Paulos said, I’ll add that Penalty Scores can be high or low, depending on what the committee think the intent (for not handing in a card) was.

Yea it was totally daft to stick down net doubles everywhere. The cheaters would love that. Register for the round, play well and keep the card in their pocket as they tip on home 🤔

Glad to see that’s not the case anymore and there is discretion with the club.

I know it often happens that you might come after a number of holes because the weather is brutal, or injury or emergency or maybe you are going to well, or to poorly, or some other reason……

so if a round is not completed for whatever reason, they are all different and while it’s right to allocate some of them against a handicap record, maybe it should not always be the case, and when it is, the treatment is probably going to depend on the situation.

however, brutal for the handicap secretary! ☹️

I do have to hold my hand up though because I think I recall once a good few years ago playing an open and only realised when I was at home that I still had my card in my pocket. 😳

Ah I’ll cheat on that one I think. 26 points. It will only make my index worse 😩

anyway, don’t have the card anymore, it got handed in for the competition on the day. I didn’t keep another physical card, just have the scores recorded on my Garmin

They seem like sore losers to me. I just had a peek at the record of the lad who won. His scores aren't crazy at all. Fair enough the presidents one was a big one, but the medal scores aren't amazing, they were just the best on the day. For example, I know a lad in the club who plays off +2. He shot a round that would have beaten the two medal scores a couple of weeks ago by 2 shots and 6 shots. And that was even with a double bogey! Lower handicap golfers can and do still win.

I'm a bit sick of reading about random high handicappers winning competitions around the country. Someone put up a screenshot in a reply to that post on twitter of a lad who won a Tuesday open somewhere too. Fair enough it was an outrageous score, but if it's in a Tuesday Open I think it's safe to say it's not someone gaming the system. It's a genuine guy who was probably delighted with his round and is now coming across his score randomly on the internet as an example of a cheater. It must be taking the good out of wins for genuine guys.

If I see an article some day with proper stats in it I'll put some stock in it. What I'd love to see is a graph with the handicaps and the chances of winning a competition (based on all the comps in the country in the past year). It would be interesting to see if your chances of winning goes up as your handicap increases. And if the reverse is true - would people want anything done about it? If a single digit handicapper is a third more likely to win a comp than a guy with a handicap in the 30s, would people want to see this addressed so that they have a similar chance? I'd like them to stick in the chances of finishing in the top 3 too. I would expect to see lower handicappers more likely to win and significantly more likely to finish in the top three than higher handicappers. This is partially based on perception (you often see the low guys in the prizes even though there are fewer of them) and an article I read years ago that did have those stats and said that basically the lower your handicap the higher the liklihood of you winning a comp (this was under the old system). But until there is actual data on it, it's all meaningless.

Yeah, but it won't be. It'll be off their low index for the year. Or so I'm reliably informed.

That reminds me of a young fella in our club who won a weekday nine hole with 23 or 24 points off a new handicap of around 38 or so. Lads were giving out about it and I just laughed at them. Like who games their handicap for a lousy weekday nine hole comp? They kinda got the point. I turned it around on them and said I'd be more suspicious of the ones coming in with 18 points with a scratch on the last hole. Smell of burning rubber as the handbrake went on. 🤣

As a 6 handicapper there is no competition I want to enter when someone can have 4 doubles, 2 scratches and only 3 pars yet I have to shoot -4 to win. Can tell that's corballis by the amount of par 3s, the amount of times he has two shots on a par 3 is scary. There should be handicap limits on competitions and you need a certain amount of counting rounds to be eligible

I certainly hope it is, would hopefully give them a bit of cop on. We have a couple of players in our club, both off 9 at the moment, they are building their handicap for interclub. Both well capable of shooting under par and well under it, level par or just over for them would be a handy round.

I really don't like this screenshot posting of people's scores on the Internet. Some of these are people improving, some are probably bandits, some are newbies who just shoot the round of their life (albeit 95+). Some are people who have come back to golf after many years out and it has taken 6+ months to get back to where they previously were.

If I was new and was improving I am bound to be hitting the odd 40+ pointer as that is what improving will mean. Imagine then you suddenly find your score being discussed on Twitter as though it's a disgrace that this guy can shoot this score. I think it would turn me right off.

I understand the low handicappers' frustration, but there has to be the opportunity for new (and returning) players to improve without shaming them in public.

The idea that you can't win a comp until you have 20 cards in seems to address the problem. You can enter, but you can't win. Surely this is down to the individual clubs though and not a criticism of the WHS.

Club’s have been asked to disable the markers for general play scores when the course is not in an acceptable score condition.

I honestly think this is pure confirmation bias. People look at a score of 40+ points and if it's a high handicap it suddenly 'proves' what they've thought all along. But they slide past anyone on a lower handicap with the same score and think nothing of it. Because it's somehow expected.

We had a 44 point win at the weekend. Chap was playing off 11. Cracking round obviously; finished three over par. 40+ scores (even now) are relatively rare events at our club, so it's noteworthy. But nobody (rightly) will call him a bandit. It should be the same for everyone.

Thanks.

Clubs have been asked by GI??? How is this done?

This is where it's done by clubs. Just switch them all off and job done. Thanks for the info.