Cap Patrol

Who has thoughts on this? https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-program-that-eliminates-cheating-and-sandbagging-at-your-golf-course-for-good

If it works as he says it should be mandatory part of a USga handicap. ( that your club use the program ) As in why hasn’t the governing bodies developed this first and implemented it ?

I obviously don’t know what the algorithm is, but I’d like to know how it accounts for changes in one’s game. Based on the article, it seems that it will work perfectly assuming players never improve or get worse, but we all know that isn’t the case. I’m sure we all know a mid-capper (e.g. 10) who shot a personal best 75 and then followed it up with a 96. Both of those scores are outliers, but both are likely innocent. Based on what the article says, I suspect both these scores could be flagged despite being innocent.

True.

I assumed it may watch for a pattern over time. As in that 10 shouldn’t be in the 70s often.

But they are only flagged as information to be considered. It doesn't change the player's record.

Its hard to know much of anything about it, all we can see is marketing claims. Even on their website, there is really no information, and to get more, you have to sign up for a telephone consultation. The idea certainly makes sense, especially if it can integrate GHIN reports with club play records, but I can see a temptation for a Handicap Committee to substitute a computer algorithms for actual human judgement.

Good luck getting a membership to trust a program that they have no idea of the backend calculations. The USGA system now has the built in soft and hard caps and automatic adjustments for exceptional scores. I don't see how this is a great benefit. For monitoring players posting scores it sounds like a good idea to make sure players have posted but it also requires that the system knows a person has played a round. This seems like something the Golf Genius software could cover if it doesn't already.

They don’t. Trust the system now. Lol. Another bogey man element won’t matter. Heck. Don’t even tell them. Should have just Just put it in with the new WGH systems.

Without knowing the cost to individual clubs, its hard for me to suggest that this be done. The developers of this software package certainly want to get paid, and may have no interest in licensing it to the USGA for universal distribution. But I do agree, if club management and its Handicap Committee agree to purchase and use this system, there's no requirement to tell the entire membership about it. The program supposedly is designed to point out specific individuals that deserve additional attention, and to provide data to use in those additional evaluations, it will remain the responsibility of the Committee to decide what to do with the data.

If he is in the 70’s often he will not stay a 10. The examples given in the linked article were not even that extreme...he states the 10 should only shoot a 74 once every 42 years....of course that depends a lot on the course rating and the volatility of scores of that player. I am guessing he looked at stats and said it happens every once in 4200 rounds or whatever based on the pope of slope chart and went from that. But it happens many multiple times a day around the world so really is not that rare. You probably see it in your groups every few weeks or so.

What cannot be controlled is the player that “never makes a putt he does not need”. So if playing a team game and his par is not needed for the team score he misses and if needed he makes. Just a few times a round and the handicap is 3 or 4 strokes higher than it should be. It is a good incentive for all groups to play individual games more often or at least play formats where all balls count more often.

Yes. As in often weekly. But. Not if he does it often as in “ every member guest “ often.

it also requires that the system knows a person has played a round.

CONGU always knows when a player has entered to play a round.

As I said they already have put something in. Soft Cap, Hard Cap and auto adjustment for exceptional scores.

Before this year we had the Exceptional Tournament Score evaluations in the USGA rules. Both last year and this year there is an important role for the Handicap Committee, and this software is being marketed as a tool to assist the Committee in doing its job. If the software is able to compare records of play compiled by the club against GHIN records of scores posted, it could be valuable in identifying players who neglect to post scores. If it effectively automates a search for unusual scoring trends by individuals, it could be valuable. The procedures in the WHS don't negate the need for an effective Handicap Committee.

My real question is why didn’t the USga invent this year’s ago?

It seems this has to interface with the clubs tee management software. It would have been very difficult for the usga to invent a system years ago that interfaced with large pieces of paper with handwriting on them.

It seems to me that the most important thing this does is compare posted rounds to played rounds and looks for trends of exceptional performance in events. Would like to see it in action but it could be great at flagging suspicious patterns.

And on the other hand, it could be completely ineffective. I'll be interested to hear of actual experiences with the program from its users.

So does Foretees. Our tee time system matches tee times to GHIN postings.

See post #18. We've had it for at least two years.

Interesting. My club uses fourtees, but Wisconsin doesn't use GHIN. I'll have to ask about this functionality.

Thank you for that Roadking....I have been discussing with our pro the best way to ensure compliance and that report looks great. I am guessing there is also a report that can be run to show who did not post on a given day? There needs to be a reason to run the report on an individual that you just posted.

Not sure about the efficacy of this system, but anything that can do something about sandbagging I am all for.

I never got the sandbagger mentality anyway. He KNOWS he didn't really win anything via his sandbagging. He KNOWS he is a cheat and a liar. He KNOWS he is selling his integrity for next to nothing. So what exactly does sandbagging get him? False accolades? A cheap trophy? A few bucks? Is it worth it...really?

If he sandbags in golf, he sandbags in life, and I don't want anything to do with someone like that.

(Not to mention the sandbagger ruins the tournament golf experience for everyone else...it's not just about him, his sandbagging affects a lot of people).

Golf is a fairly statistical game. Handicap is basically a somewhat doctored expected score of a round and there are enough shots per round (well, for most of us anyway) for the score to fall within the expected value. One can calculate all the deviations and confidence intervals he wants but I'm not convinced an unusual individual score can be with any confidence said to be an attempt to cheat. Doesn't take rocket science to flag them but what to do with that information? If the unusual becomes a pattern (e.g. through improvement in skill or through an attempt to play worse than one is capable of) then the HC will fairly quickly change to reflect the new pattern and the new scores no longer deviate from the expected scores, and shall no longer be flagged by the software.

Yes, it's at the bottom. I just didn't copy it. Members can run the report only on their own data.

You only need to run a report on golfers who win or place in the money. Everybody has an occasional good day in a tournament. What you are looking for is somebody who has a good day in lots of tournaments.

Fair enough. Maybe the paradigm is different from what I had in mind.

Here in Australia most clubs run little daily comps as (until the latest changes in the handicapping rules) one could not post many social rounds but only competition scores. You pay like $5 to participate and if you win you get maybe $20 voucher to the pro shop. Can't see the point of cheating on those ones other than for vanity. I scored 48 SF points in such a comp recently and had it been for more than just a few dollars I'm sure there would have been lots of questions asked even though it was 100% legit.

If we are talking about someone consistently scoring way better than expected at competitions with more than that on the line then I can see the point of the software. However, even then it sounds like a fairly simple piece of statistical analysis assuming there's a bit of historical data at one's disposal. Plus the question of what to do if someone is flagged remains.

IMHO, competitions with more than a few dollars worth of pro shop voucher in winnings should be on gross scores, not on net scores. That, however, is a totally different topic.

So you outed yourself as not posting all scores?? Lol

You're too honest and naive to think that will work. Baggers are sinister. They will donate money and bag in lower level tournaments or as soon as they think they're out of contention. They will wait until the big tournaments or matches to play well. They put a lot of work into their craft.

No, but I didn't want to get into the details. But I will.

On Jan 5 and Jan 7 I posted scores using the wrong date (Jan 6 and Jan 8). On Jan 12 and Jan 21 I made tee times for my buddies but I was out of town. I can't remember what happened on Dec 1.

The system isn't perfect and some of us old farts post using the wrong date.