PCC Experiences under the WHS

[rogolf]

And "conditions" include more than weather, such as when the guy who is cutting holes that day had a fight with his wife/girlfriend last night and puts all the holes in very tough places, slopes etc.

[Newby]

"I know some of our friends across the pond were confused when I posited this situation in the past".Not sure what point you are making. We have a similar process over here called the Competition Scratch Score

[golfortennis]

Not what I meant. It's that the ones who posted did not realize that in NA we don't post only competition scores. As I said, "didn't the whole field have the same conditions..."

[ThinkingPlus]

Believe it or not we had our first PCC adjustment. The adjustment was -1 meaning the course played easier by 1 stroke. It happened for the 2nd round I posted under COVID-19 posting protocols with raised cups. Not surprising really. Our rating/slope is 72.4/122 from the forward tees. I shot 69, but the differential was -2.2 which is one stroke higher than it would normally be.

[Colin L]

If someone doesn't play, doesn't return scores, their handicap will remain unchanged. If when they do play and their handicap is consequently lower than it needs to be to reflect their current playing ability, they are at a disadvantage. That's a strange kind of reward and raises the question as to to what they want a handicap for.

[SNIPERBBB]

Golf makes people do things with not a lot of thought.

[Colin L]

That is so often true for me when I set about hitting a golf ball.

[duffer987]

That's a good sign, sounds like people normally hole out at your course :-)

If they were already raking back 4 footers, the difference might not have been substantial enough.

[ThinkingPlus]

Our women's group holes out everything. Play fun golf with a mixed group on the weekends which give putts inside the leather (anything shorter than putter head to beginning of grip) to keep POP reasonable. There are other groups that are more egregious in what they give. They also complain alot when they play competitions which strictly follow the RoG. LOL. I don't think posting scores with raised cups is really appropriate, but the USGA didn't ask for my opinion (strange, huh). I played 4 rounds with raised cups. I was under par for all of them with a low of 67. Even removing obvious glancing blows off the cup edges, all rounds were par or better. Putting at a raised cup is easier, period. Moot at this point because the local government shut us down yesterday.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

Or abnormal conditions like everyone returning back to golf courses as they reopen. 91 Yesterday, and I was not alone. Lol

[tschloss]

Does anyone know, why the algorithm is treated as „secret“. The German Golf Association told me it is „licenced“. Such a huge bullxxxx. 
Handicap was always calculated and maintained by the home club and the local software. The association took away this now from the vendors (so it might be a business decision to keep it secret). I hate this kind of behavior. When associations get big corruption might start to creep into the system.

[davep043]

1 hour ago, tschloss said:

When associations get big corruption might start to creep into the system.

Why on earth would anyone want to corrupt the PCC portion of the handicap system?  

[ThinkingPlus]

6 minutes ago, davep043 said:

Why on earth would anyone want to corrupt the PCC portion of the handicap system?  

Now Dave, don't rob him of all that angst and righteous indignation. 😉

[jvincent]

I'm still surprised that I haven't seen a PCC in my scoring record yet.

[davep043]

7 minutes ago, jvincent said:

I'm still surprised that I haven't seen a PCC in my scoring record yet.

Its not real common, my home club has had just 13 days with a PCC, in the last year and a half.  Only 5 have been positive (higher than anticipated scores), so 8 have been for good scoring days.

[Newby]

9 minutes ago, jvincent said:

I'm still surprised that I haven't seen a PCC in my scoring record yet.

Was there an equivalent in Canadian system previously?

There was in the CONGU system (CSS) but seemingly rather more 'aggressive;.

[jvincent]

23 minutes ago, davep043 said:

Its not real common, my home club has had just 13 days with a PCC, in the last year and a half.  Only 5 have been positive (higher than anticipated scores), so 8 have been for good scoring days.

I play a lot and in the past year that has included some very windy conditions and in the rain. To my knowledge there have been no PCC adjustments at our club.

 

Either we have a bunch of mudders or people aren't submitting scores in time.

[jvincent]

22 minutes ago, Newby said:

Was there an equivalent in Canadian system previously?

There was in the CONGU system (CSS) but seemingly rather more 'aggressive;.

There was no equivalent for the RCGA.

 

We have been on the USGA system for quite a while now. Before we aligned in 2008 (?) we handled ESC slightly differently but were the same otherwise.

[antip]

There are virtually no PCC adjustments around here any more since the early 2020 change. In other words, PCC simply does not capture any significant variations in course difficulty now.

[rogolf]

28 minutes ago, antip said:

There are virtually no PCC adjustments around here any more since the early 2020 change. In other words, PCC simply does not capture any significant variations in course difficulty now.

Or, put another way, the variations in course/condition difficulty are insignificant.  😉

[Quasimoto]

I have never seen an adjustment here in central Alberta.

Same thing, wild swings in nasty weather and nothing.

I chalked it up to the powers that be don’t believe we play golf in those conditions.

[antip]

37 minutes ago, rogolf said:

Or, put another way, the variations in course/condition difficulty are insignificant.  😉

Or perhaps "are no longer significant"?

[rogolf]

1 hour ago, antip said:

Or perhaps "are no longer significant"?

I don't think that the calculations/process has changed since it was implemented, just feel that it was meant that its impact was minimal.

Others may have expected more.

[antip]

1 hour ago, rogolf said:

I don't think that the calculations/process has changed since it was implemented, just feel that it was meant that its impact was minimal.

Others may have expected more.

The formulation employed in this country is now (post WHS tweaks) producing dramatically different results. On my data: 18 months prior to the change (Jan 2020) 34 out of 72 rounds had PCC adjustment, in the 18 months since then 6 from 93 rounds adjusted. Perhaps we can blame climate change in the southern hemisphere?🙃

[tschloss]

12 hours ago, davep043 said:

Why on earth would anyone want to corrupt the PCC portion of the handicap system?  

Why on earth do they keep this as a secret??? 

 

The only idea I had is that they might want to use this little part to gain and keep control over the service (which is a business!). But I would be very interested to hear other ideas.

 

They write a rule 5.6 but don‘t say who it is used? I am really upset about this crazy situation!

 

 

[Newby]

2 hours ago, tschloss said:

Why on earth do they keep this as a secret??? 

 

The only idea I had is that they might want to use this little part to gain and keep control over the service (which is a business!). But I would be very interested to hear other ideas.

 

They write a rule 5.6 but don‘t say who it is used? I am really upset about this crazy situation!

 

 

What difference would it make if you had the details of the algorithm? 

Would it change your approach to a round or stroke? Would you be in a position to challenge the formula?

[davep043]

My best guess, they keep the calculation "secret" for one of two reasons, perhaps both.  First, there are a million ways they could do the calculation, but there's no single "correct" way to do it.  If its public information, you'll certainly have a million people offering a million different ways it should be done, because they each know better than the USGA and R&A, and telling everyone how screwed up it is.  So keeping the calculation private provokes relatively few complaints.  Second, they know that the calculation may not work out exactly as they have intended.  If the details aren't known, they can tweak the calculation down the road to make it work they way they want it to, without millions of people using the change as proof that the USGA and R&A are so ignorant that they screwed up this simple calculation when they first developed it.

As @Newby has asked, would it matter if you did have the details of the PCC?  Do you have access to every score posted at your home course for each day, so that you can check that its being used correctly?

To me, there are many more important things to be "really upset about."  

[JimD]

I have four PCC adjustments in my last twenty scores. Three are positive adjustments from competitions where the organizer posted every score to GHIN on the day of the event. The negative adjustment was a regular weekend round on a course that I think plays quite a bit easier than its rating.

 

I wonder if, outside of competitions, players are less likely to immediately post particularly bad scores.

[ThinkingPlus]

1 hour ago, davep043 said:

My best guess, they keep the calculation "secret" for one of two reasons, perhaps both.  First, there are a million ways they could do the calculation, but there's no single "correct" way to do it.  If its public information, you'll certainly have a million people offering a million different ways it should be done, because they each know better than the USGA and R&A, and telling everyone how screwed up it is.  So keeping the calculation private provokes relatively few complaints.  Second, they know that the calculation may not work out exactly as they have intended.  If the details aren't known, they can tweak the calculation down the road to make it work they way they want it to, without millions of people using the change as proof that the USGA and R&A are so ignorant that they screwed up this simple calculation when they first developed it.

As @Newby has asked, would it matter if you did have the details of the PCC?  Do you have access to every score posted at your home course for each day, so that you can check that its being used correctly?

To me, there are many more important things to be "really upset about."  

The third reason is return on investment.  The company providing the service spent some amount of effort and resources developing and validating their technique.  They would like to cover their investment costs and, of course, make some profit longer term.  Thus, they make their approach proprietary.  It's their IP; they can do as they please with it.

[sui generis]

29 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

The third reason is return on investment.  The company providing the service spent some amount of effort and resources developing and validating their technique.  They would like to cover their investment costs and, of course, make some profit longer term.  Thus, they make their approach proprietary.  It's their IP; they can do as they please with it.

 

That leaves no room for outrage! How dare they? I smell a rat. Kinda like Coca-Cola . . . them scoundrels won't tell us what's in their fizzy sugar water, either. 😉