Are people that play all the time but never post scores cheating or just uninterested?

[BIG STU]

24 minutes ago, Hickory4ever said:

What is really apparent is how different Golf handicapping is viewed in different parts of the world. The whole purpose of handicapping is for an accurate assessment of skill level to allow players of different skill levels to play each other and any manipulation whether deliberate or innocent reduces the accuracy. 
 

For those that intend to play competitively where handicaps are utilized, you should report your scores by the rules of your national association. I personally like the UK system better, but live in Canada and so follow Canadian rules. 
 

Unfortunately, the human factor will always impact the accuracy of the numbers. The result is people gaming the system.

The honest truth spoken in a nutshell

[HappyGilmoresBoots]

3 hours ago, BIG STU said:

I basically do the same thing in practice rounds myself. And I really think it helps me more than range time as far as on my overall game. I also have a contingent of fellow old fart members that are oblivious to other members and do not care since they are only playing 9 holes. Will jack around and do not even think others are on the course. Gives me time to hit different shots and experiment. The way our course sets up and I am not able to walk now so I ride gives me opportunity to skip around or just go around them and then go back to the hole I skipped if I want to. But my practice mode is exactly like yours

Now I know the subject of the original post but for me it is a moot point. I do not play leagues or play stipulated events anymore. I do not keep an official GHIN handicap. But I have absolutely no problem if someone keeps a stipulated handicap and does as you do. After all practice is practice. I have absolutely with anyone posting scores when ever they want. What I have a problem with is those like in our leagues posting like a 15 or 16 handicap and then the same bunch shoots anywhere from 8 to 10 under in the weekly shootout. Another reason I do not keep a stipulated handicap is also ethics to me. I play non conforming equipment (see my signature) and I feel in the spirit and rules of the game and system it would not be ethical for me to post. But then again I play the equipment I play out of choice. 

In the spirit of the game, I know that I'm adhering to the rules to the best of my ability - holing out every time, counting all my penalty strokes, no mulligans, etc.  The only things I do outside the rules are playing solo, and sometimes playing a second ball.

 

I like numbers, and I like tracking my progress.  Plus, the group I've sorta fallen in with uses The Grint, so while I calculate a handicap, I know that it's not "official" for tournaments and stuff.

[SNIPERBBB]

2 hours ago, davep043 said:

Obviously I hope you're right.  However, "everyone" will not come to this conclusion.  I've read too many people who are outraged by the very idea of attestation, claiming that it will never work, its impossible for public course players, that "everyone" will stop paying for handicaps, etc.  There's no question that such a change will inspire opposition, will come with some difficulties, and will be resisted by many.  Some people may indeed choose not to keep a handicap.  That's life, I still think its the best way to go.

I dont get what the problem with attestation is outside of the perpetual singles that rarely play with anyone else but want their scores counted for 'cap purposes. Other than that, if you belong to a serious club, the point of being in such a club is that the handicaps are closely policed for the benefit of all the member and you knew that when you joined. Unless your goal was to fleece them for as long as you could before being kicked out.

[davep043]

15 minutes ago, HappyGilmoresBoots said:

In the spirit of the game, I know that I'm adhering to the rules to the best of my ability - holing out every time, counting all my penalty strokes, no mulligans, etc.  The only things I do outside the rules are playing solo, and sometimes playing a second ball.

 

I like numbers, and I like tracking my progress.  Plus, the group I've sorta fallen in with uses The Grint, so while I calculate a handicap, I know that it's not "official" for tournaments and stuff.

As much of a stickler I am for following the Rules when posting for official handicap, I have no problem at all with what anyone posts to the Grint or any other unofficial handicap system.  Do what you get the most value from, do what your fellow-competitors think is fair, and enjoy playing.  But if anyone wants to maintain an official handicap, follow the rules that everyone else is required to follow.

[BIG STU]

2 hours ago, HappyGilmoresBoots said:

In the spirit of the game, I know that I'm adhering to the rules to the best of my ability - holing out every time, counting all my penalty strokes, no mulligans, etc.  The only things I do outside the rules are playing solo, and sometimes playing a second ball.

 

I like numbers, and I like tracking my progress.  Plus, the group I've sorta fallen in with uses The Grint, so while I calculate a handicap, I know that it's not "official" for tournaments and stuff.

See that is what I like someone like you that has integrity in the spirit of the rules. And from what I have been reading now you are not supposed to post solo rounds so it would be a good time to play practice shots.

Now I have a bud of mine who is physically handicapped but is a computer whiz. He has all the handicapping software. He does several of ours we just call them in. All we basically do is give him the score and what tees. He has all the info on our local courses as far as slope number etc. He will e mail you a sheet once a month. Up until my accident 2 years ago I kept 2 handicaps one for the front line signature set and one for strictly vintage. Now on the Persimmon vintage rounds I do go forward one set of tees. As soon as this Tourist season is over I will start playing full rounds again and posting. I do as you to track my progress and nothing else. Yeah this bud of mine also has some general health problems and has stayed inside during the pandemic. He used to pre pandemic ride around and watch us some. LOL do not let him keep score because on a computer he is a genius as long as there is a keyboard involved. On a scorecard and this is no joke he is dyslexic as hell. Same way with written spelling. He writes golf as flog--- I think sometime he does stuff like that to be funny in person. I am not making light with anyone who is dyslexic but he talks crap and makes fun of himself. 

[bobfoster]

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Edited March 10, 2022 by bobfoster

[bobfoster]

20 hours ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

Sure, if one has a mentality of a cheater. The real question is, should the system or the players be built to avoid cheating. 

Fortunately or not, golf is fundamentally built on the assumption of honor. "The only sport where you call a penalty on yourself." (There's a couple of scenes in movies - one in Stroke of Genius, and one in Bagger Vance, that are positively priceless.) Unless you're playing professionally, there's dozens of ways to cheat - if you want to - both in entering scores, and on the course (I've seen guys that hit almost as many foot wedges as actual wedges in a round). I don't really think it would even be possible to build a build a handicap system that was totally cheater-proof. The nature of the game itself kind of precludes doing so.

 

I'm actually fine with things as they are. There's a lot of people that follow the rules, that really enjoy the structured nature of the game (the pleasure that comes from a good final score at the end of a round would, to me, be greatly diminished if I cheated to get it). There's others that either don't care that much about the RoG, or, in the case of many weekenders, just don't know them in anything other than a vague way. I'm indifferent to how anyone other than myself chooses to play.

 

This, though, is because I no longer play competitively with something on the line. If I were, I'd be quite pissed at anyone that gamed the handicap system, or cheated during the round. But I guess my point is that if someone truly wants to cheat at golf, it may be possible to make it more difficult to do so, but you'll never be able to construct a system that completely prevents it. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by bobfoster

[MaccaRayDudley]

On 8/31/2014 at 6:12 PM, vbb said:

I play in a larger group with a bunch of guys once a week (your "handicap" for the group is based on the average of the scores you've shot with the group and is adjusted weekly to keep it fair) and then a smaller core group of guys the other times. Although most of us are members of one of the area clubs and have GHIN numbers, I've noticed that only about half of the people are religious about posting their scores. Some guys post here and there, and others post only a round or two a month. I don't get why this is. It's not like the guys I see are only posting their bad rounds either (obvious bagging) and most of them play in club handicapped events, so it isn't as if they don't need an established handicap either.

 

I post every round I play, unless I'm practicing, so if you look at my scores, I've got 20 rounds in the last couple months, whereas some of the guys I play with have rounds still on their ghin going back to 2013, and I know darned well they have played way more than that.

 

Is there another reason other than cheating that someone wouldn't post?

It depends what you intend to do with your handicap I suppose.  If you are competing against others or taking their money, your handicap should be accurate and you should report all of your scores.  If your purpose of having a handicap is merely to convince yourself and others as to how good you are, you are free to delude yourself by selectively reporting your lowest scores.  A pointless thing to do, but ultimately harmless.  

 

Sandbaggers tend to report inflated scores as opposed to failing to report their lower scores although they can do that as well to manipulate their handicaps.  “Fantasy Cappers” on the other hand can only manipulate their handicap downwards by reporting only their best scores.  I’d bet the majority of folks selectively reporting scores are in the “fantasy camp”.

[Mr. Bean]

4 hours ago, MaccaRayDudley said:

Sandbaggers tend to report inflated scores as opposed to failing to report their lower scores although they can do that as well to manipulate their handicaps.  “Fantasy Cappers” on the other hand can only manipulate their handicap downwards by reporting only their best scores.  I’d bet the majority of folks selectively reporting scores are in the “fantasy camp”.

 

At my home club some years ago a young person faced disciplinary actions for having reported too low (false) scores repeatedly. Reason for this was that they wanted to compete on the national tour and as this person was not skilled enough to succeed in the qualifications they manipulated their handicap. One needs to have low enough handicap to get the weakest category and potentially find a competition with free capacity from players of stronger category.

 

This is just to show that manipulating one's handicap downwards may also be sandbagging.

[Desh]

I did not see any mention this and I think this is a big reason that people don't post a lot of scores. I also think it is a legitimate and reasonable and not so easy to determine because the ruling of "The player must be trying to score the best on every shot" is not reasonable. People don't do this, including myself. How many times do you actually play a round where you can say to yourself, "I gave it my best effort on every shot to play for score and did not take any shortcuts on my routine"? For me it might be one out of every 10 rounds, just depends on if that day I actually feel like putting in the full effort. I imagine this happens to the majority of us. For example, say there are 3 putts in round where I don't go look at the break from all sides, do my full pre-shot routine, say I do it to 95% just because I am lazy, or you just don't feel like determining if your miss should be short right rather than short left etc... on approach shots. Or off the tee you really don't care about looking from the box if it is a front pin or center pin so you know if you want to be 100 yards going in or 75. So should I not log my rounds unless I execute this 100%?

 

[Newby]

2 hours ago, Desh said:

"The player must be trying to score the best on every shot" 

 

They are not the actual words of the 'requirement' and it is qualified when it says 'to provide reasonable evidence of their demonstrated ability'

[rogolf]

2 hours ago, Desh said:

I did not see any mention this and I think this is a big reason that people don't post a lot of scores. I also think it is a legitimate and reasonable and not so easy to determine because the ruling of "The player must be trying to score the best on every shot" is not reasonable. People don't do this, including myself. How many times do you actually play a round where you can say to yourself, "I gave it my best effort on every shot to play for score and did not take any shortcuts on my routine"? For me it might be one out of every 10 rounds, just depends on if that day I actually feel like putting in the full effort. I imagine this happens to the majority of us. For example, say there are 3 putts in round where I don't go look at the break from all sides, do my full pre-shot routine, say I do it to 95% just because I am lazy, or you just don't feel like determining if your miss should be short right rather than short left etc... on approach shots. Or off the tee you really don't care about looking from the box if it is a front pin or center pin so you know if you want to be 100 yards going in or 75. So should I not log my rounds unless I execute this 100%?

 

Is such a pre-shot routine like yours necessary for your best effort?  I can't remember the last time that I looked at a putt from all sides, and I'm trying my best on every stroke.

[Desh]

4 hours ago, rogolf said:

Is such a pre-shot routine like yours necessary for your best effort?  I can't remember the last time that I looked at a putt from all sides, and I'm trying my best on every stroke.

Yes it is best effort. To score your best in golf it requires more than best effort in the moment for the swing. You need to put in effort in other areas.

[rogolf]

1 hour ago, Desh said:

Yes it is best effort. To score your best in golf it requires more than best effort in the moment for the swing. You need to put in effort in other areas.

Guess it's okay as long as your total "pre-shot routine" takes less than 15 seconds!

[oikos1]

I love threads like these in the rules forum where answers are given to a question that really has no answers.

[SNIPERBBB]

17 hours ago, Desh said:

Yes it is best effort. To score your best in golf it requires more than best effort in the moment for the swing. You need to put in effort in other areas.

Thats definitely not it. If you're playing for score, you should be posting the round. What a lot of people have issues with posting casual rounds is posting a scores where they dont care how many balls the loose hitting it OB or in the water because they're treating the course like a driving range. I could post 90 every round posting my practice rounds, playing solo,because im pounding driver more often than i should, then come in and shoot par +/- 3 strokes in a money game 

 

Nobody really cares about vanity cappers posting low rounds unless they're playing in usga/state am qualifiers or member team events and you're stuck with that guy who should just play Putt-Putt

[Girevik]

I never bothered to post a score until I joined my club's league that uses your GHIN handicap and was therefore required.  I couldn't care less what my "official" handicap is, but since it's needed for my club's league I started keeping it and post every "legitimate" round.

[caniac6]

If I didn’t play in club tournaments or with my regular group for a few bucks, I wouldn’t keep a handicap.

[sethdavidsdad]

On 8/31/2014 at 6:12 PM, vbb said:

I play in a larger group with a bunch of guys once a week (your "handicap" for the group is based on the average of the scores you've shot with the group and is adjusted weekly to keep it fair) and then a smaller core group of guys the other times. Although most of us are members of one of the area clubs and have GHIN numbers, I've noticed that only about half of the people are religious about posting their scores. Some guys post here and there, and others post only a round or two a month. I don't get why this is. It's not like the guys I see are only posting their bad rounds either (obvious bagging) and most of them play in club handicapped events, so it isn't as if they don't need an established handicap either.

 

I post every round I play, unless I'm practicing, so if you look at my scores, I've got 20 rounds in the last couple months, whereas some of the guys I play with have rounds still on their ghin going back to 2013, and I know darned well they have played way more than that.

 

Is there another reason other than cheating that someone wouldn't post?

I don't ever post scores but I play almost daily from spring to fall. Several reasons, first off our club used to have a computer in the shop just for posting scores and you could just leave your card and they would post. Second, we don't have any handicap events currently. Kind of sad, because it truly is a way for everyone to compete. Most people in our area just don't want to post scores. Lastly, we don't always start on 1 and we bounce around. We play fast and don't like waiting. Play at a private club that is usually not busy so we just go where we want and play as much as we want. It's the good life if you ever get in that situation, play 36 in 5-6 hours but rarely 36 holes in the correct order. 

[Rocky Ball-boa]

A while back at least, my club had this system where you had to "declare intent" before your round to the starter's hut, or on the app. Once you've declared that you intend to hand in a score, you have to do it. Otherwise you get some 0.1 increase penalty or something like that. And I'm sure the hcp commissioner would get involved if there were multiple infractions.

 

That allows for guilt-free practice rounds or for those times you simply don't feel like you'll be able to post a representative score. The app also had time restrictions, so you had to post the score within 6 hours of your tee time. Someone said it was location-aware, so you had to be within a certain distance of the club house.. but I never gave it that permission and it never complained at me, so I don't know.

 

Side-note; does anyone know what the rules are with regards to injuries? Like hypothetically.. if you tweak your ankle mid-round, but kinda make it work just to keep playing? The score won't reflect your ability whatsoever, are you still required to hand it in if you finish the round? What about if the round is aborted due to injury?

[rogolf]

3 hours ago, Rocky Ball-boa said:

A while back at least, my club had this system where you had to "declare intent" before your round to the starter's hut, or on the app. Once you've declared that you intend to hand in a score, you have to do it. Otherwise you get some 0.1 increase penalty or something like that. And I'm sure the hcp commissioner would get involved if there were multiple infractions.

 

That allows for guilt-free practice rounds or for those times you simply don't feel like you'll be able to post a representative score. The app also had time restrictions, so you had to post the score within 6 hours of your tee time. Someone said it was location-aware, so you had to be within a certain distance of the club house.. but I never gave it that permission and it never complained at me, so I don't know.

 

Side-note; does anyone know what the rules are with regards to injuries? Like hypothetically.. if you tweak your ankle mid-round, but kinda make it work just to keep playing? The score won't reflect your ability whatsoever, are you still required to hand it in if you finish the round? What about if the round is aborted due to injury?

Notify the Committee in such instances.