Proposed world handicap system

[Dick in Shorts]

http://www.golfchannel.com/article/golf-central-blog/usga-ra-detail-world-handicap-system/?cid=Email_TuesdayNL_20180220

What do we think?

[Cols_Ears]

Lovely - how does it actually work then...

edit - having had a look on http://www.popeofslope.com/courserating/numbers.html I've done a quick calc and mine would be about a shot lower than my current CONGU handicap.

Sounds like you could fudge it pretty easily though by not putting in your bad rounds if you want to seem lower than you are capable of! And probably vice versa...

[Scotty]

Lovely - how does it actually work then...

edit - having had a look on http://www.popeofslope.com/courserating/numbers.html I've done a quick calc and mine would be about a shot lower than my current CONGU handicap.

Sounds like you could fudge it pretty easily though by not putting in your bad rounds if you want to seem lower than you are capable of! And probably vice versa...

I did mine and I'm a full 3 shots better than my current handicap (which funnily enough is the same handicap I had when in the US)

It's actually quite difficult to fudge a better handicap. The main part of the calc is based on the average of your best. If you don't put any bad scores in, the average is still only based on your very best, which shows your potential lowest scoring. Ie, not submitting bad rounds doesn't make your best scores any better....

What the new system does is show a guy that can shoot 62 every now and then is potentially a better player than someone that only ever shoots 72. Current system doesn't differentiate between these two players very easily, hence why you currently have a shit load of players playing off 2 to 5 that couldn't break par if their life depended on it.

I know a guy that shoots 67 or 82 when he plays. He is a superb ball striker, great putter, has bottle and we play a square game with no strokes. He beats me just as often as I beat him. I play off 1 and he's a 7 handicap. This new system makes him, guess what, the same handicap as me, a whole 9 shots better than current.

I've not really looked at the other end, in terms of achieving a higher handicap than ability suggests, because frankly i don't care. I don;t enter handicap comps and I certainly don't care about nett results in comps (for the reason that current handicaps are a sham and say very little about ability and form)

As far as I can see, changes look good providing the slope and course ratings are done correctly on courses not already rated.

[Stu-Pid]

I've had a look at my scores over the last 100 rounds to see how the old and new systems compare.

Obviously at this stage the actual finer details of the calculations aren’t know (or at least I haven’t seen them), so I just used the best 8 scores from the last 20 without any other adjustments.  In the absence of slope ratings I used variance to SSS/ CSS after making the net double bogey adjustments.

	CONGU	UWHC	Var
Low	4.9	3.6	-1.3
High	7.5	8.0	1.0
Ave	6.1	6.0	-0.1

Just looking at my rounds from last year (35 rounds) these are the results:

	CONGU	UWHC	Var
Low	4.9	3.6	-1.3
High	6.2	7.1	1.0
Ave	5.6	5.4	-0.2

What's interesting is how close the averages are in both cases, but with much bigger peaks and troughs on the new system compared to the current one.

What really stood out for me though is how quickly your HC can go up compared to the current system.  Last year I had a bad run of play where I had 10 consecutive 0.1 increases to go from 4.9 to 5.9.  In the same period using the new system my HC would have gone from 3.8 to 6.3, an increase of 2.5 shots in just 10 rounds!

Now, it may well be that the new system will have safeguards in place to prevent such rapid increases, which may be what the following line from the press release relates to:

An average-based calculation of a handicap, taken from the best eight out of the last 20 scores and “factoring in memory of previous demonstrated ability for better responsiveness and control.”

[Yanner]

Taking just my last 20 rounds my UWC would be 4 shots lower than my congu, 6 to 10.  Being a bit boom and bust really alters the numbers, I have only 2 scores in the qualifying 8 rounds under the 6 handicap, one being a level par round.  My 22nd oldest score was a 3-under 69 where I had every lucky break going, had that qualified it would have knocked off another 1.25 shots 

[Vince Baby]

"What other details of the World Handicap System can you share?

Further details of the WHS will emerge over the coming months. However, we want to emphasize that it is being designed to be as accessible and inclusive as possible, while still providing golfers with the portability, accuracy and consistency they expect."

In other words, they haven't really worked out the practical implementation of it all yet.

Like how will weather conditions affect changes if you played a social round rather than a comp where CSS would have had the effect.

Will be interesting....

[SkankyShanky]

sounds ripe for sandbagging ahead of the big comps

[Stu-Pid]

sounds ripe for sandbagging ahead of the big comps

I assume that is where the ‘memory of previous demonstrated ability’ bit comes in.  If you have shown that you can play to 5 then I doubt that the system would allow you to put in 20 bad rounds in 6 weeks ahead of a big comp to be able to play off 12 for the day.  There will probably be a maximum increase built in which would override the calculation of the average.  I'd also hope that there would be a limit to the number of rounds per week/ month that can be submitted, and maybe also a max ratio of casual to competition rounds.

In general though I am in favour of the changes, and have always thought that casual rounds should be factored in for handicapping purposes, especially when people may play dozens of casual rounds for every competiton round.  As always though, the devil will be in the details.

[Yanner]

I assume that is where the ‘memory of previous demonstrated ability’ bit comes in.  If you have shown that you can play to 5 then I doubt that the system would allow you to put in 20 bad rounds in 6 weeks ahead of a big comp to be able to play off 12 for the day.  There will probably be a maximum increase built in which would override the calculation of the average.  I'd also hope that there would be a limit to the number of rounds per week/ month that can be submitted, and maybe also a max ratio of casual to competition rounds.

In general though I am in favour of the changes, and have always thought that casual rounds should be factored in for handicapping purposes, especially when people may play dozens of casual rounds for every competiton round.  As always though, the devil will be in the details.

Possibly something similar to the max net double bogey we currently have.  Something like a limit on how high a score can be posted at your current handicap level.

Reading about Larry Fitzgeralds handicap in the AT&T shows that even the best x scores from last y rounds needs work to stop sandbagging - clearly room for improvement.

[Blofeld]

https://www.randa.org/WorldHandicapSystem/Highlights

[Blofeld]

Just browsing my county unions site and found a report of the progress of rating course for Slope.

They completed 7 in 2017 (including my home course), plan to do another 7 in 2018 and the same in 2019. This would leave NINE courses unrated at the time of introduction of the World Handicapping Scheme.

Somewhat worryingly the report states that it is the assessors understand that courses that have not been rated by then will be given a temporary SSS/Slope figure by England Golf pending formal rating!!

So if they cant get it done they will guess!!....would have been interesting to see what they would have "guessed" for my course as the general perception of it is that it is a short easy course!!!....but was rated at 129 off the back tees.

[Cols_Ears]

So if they cant get it done they will guess!!....would have been interesting to see what they would have "guessed" for my course as the general perception of it is that it is a short easy course!!!....but was rated at 129 off the back tees.

Sounds pretty short and easy to me Nick  RAGC is 144 from the blues or 141 from the whites...

Average is 113 apparently.

I believe that every course in Scotland has a course rating and slope index and they have had for a while now. Surely they'll just have to train a few more people in England & Wales (& NI?) - can only take a day per course surely?

[Tonypate]

I know the Lancashire Golf Union has recently been asking for volunteers to go around courses in the area for exactly this reason - hopefully it seems as though they will not want to get caught out in the same way as in Nick's region.

[Stu-Pid]

https://www.randa.org/WorldHandicapSystem/Highlights

Thanks for the link Nick.  As expected this does shed a little bit more light on what they have planned and the following seems to confirm my suspicions above about there being a maximum increase in HC allowed (or something similar) to prevent artificial inflation of HCs prior to big competitions:

Basis of Handicap Calculation

Averaging the best eight of a player’s most recent 20 scores provides a good indicator of potential ability. When combined with memory of demonstrated ability over time, the resulting handicap provides a balance between responsiveness and control - so a temporary loss of form should not automatically lead to an excessive increase in handicap.

The guide also gives a hint as to how they will deal with the abnormal weather conditions and calculating what would basically be a daily CSS calculation:

Submit your Score

The player should submit their score as soon as practicable after completing the round, preferably before midnight on the day of play for inclusion in the daily Course Conditions Adjustment calculation. This allows a responsive update of the player’s handicap for the next day they play.

So essentially it looks as though they will analyse all of the scores submitted at a course (or potentially all courses in a local area) on a certain day and see if the scoring was abnormally high (or low).  If there was a large variation to the 'normal' rounds that are posted then an adjustment to the CSS (or presumably slope rating going forward) can be made.  I would assume that they will need a minimum number of rounds posted to make any adjustments to 'CCA' rating for the day, and possibly like CSS they will weight it towards how the 'better' players perform.

[SkankyShanky]

Sounds pretty short and easy to me Nick  RAGC is 144 from the blues or 141 from the whites...

If https://www.ushandicap.com//golf-course/course.asp?facilityID=28889 is correct, RSG is 145 even from the medal tees. Does that mean if they start accounting this our handicaps will take a hit?