Why not just sandbag?

[AntLockyer]

50% of the time I think this about handicap comps too. I came second yesterday but played badly (in real terms).

 

The only thing that pulls me back is we know the rules beforehand. It's still an opportunity to golf under pressure (the best kind of golf). Ultimately the answer is to practice more and not play in anything other than non flighted scratch comps.

[MelloYello]

5 hours ago, AntLockyer said:

50% of the time I think this about handicap comps too. I came second yesterday but played badly (in real terms).

 

The only thing that pulls me back is we know the rules beforehand. It's still an opportunity to golf under pressure (the best kind of golf). Ultimately the answer is to practice more and not play in anything other than non flighted scratch comps.

 

Net / Flighted events are about the only thing available to people like me. 

 

I'm 36yo and I'm a low, single digit. If I play against a field of + Indexes I'll obviously get smoked.

 

Where are golfers of my skill level playing where they have any sort of reasonable chance? 

 

As all of you surely found out yourselves, when you're 36 and have a real life you can't compete with kids who live with no responsibilities other than to practice or people who took up the game when they were young and have been scratch or better for 20+ years.

 

I'm not "elite" in that way and probably never will be. I play as much as 80-90 holes a week and don't have a wife or kids. That's about as much as someone who's 36 could ever do to commit themselves. It's kind of embarrassing if we're honest.  

 

It's easy to say the answer is to just avoid these type of Net / Flighted events but you can't. There's no alternative except the money games we play and even those are manipulated to "balance teams" not to mention any of the roll-it-in-the-fairway, rake-the-short-putts formats you run into.  

 

It's funny that so many are hung up on playing by the RoG and doing their own thing yet if you're not elite enough to compete with the absolute best, none of that really applies. 

 

.

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[Mr. Bean]

The title of this thread and the OP led to this question in my head:

 

How does sandbagging affect gross scores..?

[jvincent]

13 hours ago, MelloYello said:

 

Yeah, I assume it's standard but man, does it feel awful. 

 

I very much wanted to compete in the "open" / Blue-Tee / 3-day event and absolutely would've had I been free. I would've gotten smoked by the 4-5 elite players at the top but I surely would've had a lot of fun with the other low handicaps playing in it. 

 

We're trying to push for having these 3 events (Blue Tee, White Tee, Stableford) all broken up and held on separate weekends so guys like me can do all 3 and have fun. Many of us feel that should at least be the case for the Blue & White tee events. 

 

For some dumb reason we do them all (along with 3 Women's divisions) on 1 single weekend. 

 

.

 

We hold ours on the same weekend.

 

And like I said earlier, if each flight plays a different tee / format then there is no comparison to draw between flights. Each flight is essentially its own tournament.

 

So, if you are in the "white tee gross" flight then the fact that somebody who is in the "green tee gross" flight has a higher score to par than you and wins more money doesn't matter.

[AntLockyer]

37 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

Net / Flighted events are about the only thing available to people like me. 

 

I'm 36yo and I'm a low, single digit. If I play against a field of + Indexes I'll obviously get smoked.

 

Where are golfers of my skill level playing where they have any sort of reasonable chance? 

 

You've kind of answered the entire thread here. Flighted tournaments exist for you. Caring what happens in other flights is missing the point entirely.

[MelloYello]

43 minutes ago, jvincent said:

 

We hold ours on the same weekend.

 

And like I said earlier, if each flight plays a different tee / format then there is no comparison to draw between flights. Each flight is essentially its own tournament.

 

So, if you are in the "white tee gross" flight then the fact that somebody who is in the "green tee gross" flight has a higher score to par than you and wins more money doesn't matter.

 

That sounds reasonable. 

 

Breaking it up by handicap just serves to make it a Net event in my mind. 

[MelloYello]

39 minutes ago, AntLockyer said:

You've kind of answered the entire thread here. Flighted tournaments exist for you. Caring what happens in other flights is missing the point entirely.

 

Well, I just don't see the point of practicing and keeping a low index then. 

 

If being a worse golfer is going to earn me more money, I think we have a problem. 

[jvincent]

1 minute ago, MelloYello said:

 

Well, I just don't see the point of practicing and keeping a low index then. 

 

If being a worse golfer is going to earn me more money, I think we have a problem. 

 

The prize money issue is an artefact of what you need to do to get more people playing. If you only played one tournament with gross scoring you'd only have 10 guys playing in the CC.

 

Full disclosure, I won our B-flight last year. I beat a few guys who had better indeces than me and won a few $$, so that was good. In past years I have squeaked into the A flight and had my a** handed to me. But it was still good to be in the A-flight.

[MelloYello]

13 hours ago, mokedaddy said:

So now they stole the money?  C’mon man.  If you don’t like the rules of flighted events don’t play in flighted events.  It’s not like you didn’t know the rules beforehand.

 

edit:  I get your frustration and sometimes it helps to vent but big picture it is what it is.  

 

Dude, I wish there was an option but there's just nowhere I can go that checks the following boxes: 

 

(1) Play the back tees (6,800-yds)

(2) Play individual stroke play

(3) Gross scoring

(4) Putt out (no concession, gimmes, raking, etc.)

(5) Play with others for money 

 

You would think that type of golf would be common but it's basically non-existent in nature. 

 

Every "option" I have negates something either through the presence of (1) handicapping, (2) balancing teams based on skill, (3) flighting, (4) conceding putts, and/or (5) playing white tees which are short (6,350). 

 

 

People act like playing by the rules for money is easy but if you're not a + index who's shooting 60-something, you're not competing in the few groups/events where that happens. 

 

This is what sucks about competitive golf to me. It's either you have to be utterly elite or you are better off being a sandbagging 5-index. 

[mokedaddy]

2 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

Dude, I wish there was an option but there's just nowhere I can go that checks the following boxes: 

 

(1) Play the back tees (6,800-yds)

(2) Play individual stroke play

(3) Gross scoring

(4) Putt out (no concession, gimmes, raking, etc.)

(5) Play with others for money 

 

You would think that type of golf would be common but it's basically non-existent in nature. 

 

Every "option" I have negates something either through the presence of (1) handicapping, (2) balancing teams based on skill, (3) flighting, (4) conceding putts, and/or (5) playing white tees which are short (6,350). 

 

 

People act like playing by the rules for money is easy but if you're not a + index who's shooting 60-something, you're not competing in the few groups/events where that happens. 

 

This is what sucks about competitive golf to me. It's either you have to be utterly elite or you are better off being a sandbagging 5-index. 

Yeah I get it and it’s probably not real fair.  It’s something I myself used to struggle with.

[MelloYello]

14 minutes ago, jvincent said:

 

The prize money issue is an artefact of what you need to do to get more people playing. If you only played one tournament with gross scoring you'd only have 10 guys playing in the CC.

 

Full disclosure, I won our B-flight last year. I beat a few guys who had better indeces than me and won a few $$, so that was good. In past years I have squeaked into the A flight and had my a** handed to me. But it was still good to be in the A-flight.

 

See though, that's wrong (what I bolded). People are dying to sign up for all the events because they want to participate. That's what it is to be a member.

 

People just want to play. Everyone I spoke to this weekend lamented the fact we did the tournaments on top of each other (Blue tee, White tee, Stableford, etc.) We all would've preferred to break them up and play them individually (thus paying triple). 

 

It means something to someone when they compete and place Top-10. It means a lot of they can be Top-Half or if they can beat their friends.  Competition is competition. 

 

But beating your friend and seeing him walk away with money when you get nothing is just BS. 

 

 

Do you really understand what members pay? My monthly dues are $320 but my bill last month was $1,100+.

 

Members don't gripe about supporting the cause. We invented and preserve the cause with our wallets. Nothing about this is really about the money. It's about doing what right by the members and providing them the best experience. 

 

.

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[DaveLeeNC]

It was a flighted event that works like flighted events work. I don't see why there would be an issue here.  

 

dave

[North Butte]

I'm not really into the whole stroke-play tournament mindset but I wouldn't mind playing in a club tournament occasionally under the following conditions:

 

1) Play in less then 4-1/2 hours

2) Walk instead of ride in a cart

3) Stableford scoring so you don't have people grinding out their third putt for 9 on a hole or marching back to the tee box when they can't find their first ball or provisional in the woods.

 

The first two are complete non-starters at my club (and many others). Tournaments require carts and tournament rounds are always pushing 5 hours (if not more). So it hardly matters that nobody at most USA clubs is interesting in Stableford vs. medal play. 

 

[jvincent]

6 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

See though, that's wrong (what I bolded). People are dying to sign up for all the events because they want to participate. That's what it is to be a member.

 

People just want to play. Everyone I spoke to this weekend lamented the fact we did the tournaments on top of each other (Blue tee, White tee, Stableford, etc.) We all would've preferred to break them up and play them individually (thus paying triple). 

 

It means something to someone when they compete and place Top-10. It means a lot of they can be Top-Half or if they can beat their friends.  Competition is competition. 

 

But beating your friend and seeing him walk away with money when you get nothing is just BS. 

 

 

Do you really understand what members pay? My monthly dues are $320 but my bill last month was $1,100+.

 

Members don't gripe about supporting the cause. We invented and preserve the cause with our wallets. Nothing about this is really about the money. It's about doing what right by the members and providing them the best experience. 

 

.

 

 

Every club is different. 

 

We are pretty active and our championship flight gets around 30 or so entries even though realistically there are probably only 10 guys that have a chance.

 

All the other flights have even more participation.

[MelloYello]

1 minute ago, DaveLeeNC said:

It was a flighted event that works like flighted events work. I don't see why there would be an issue here.  

 

dave

 

A senior flight? Sure. 

A new-member flight? Why not? 

 

This is skill-based match-making plain and simple and it's been a problem for years in a million competitive ventures. It ruined Call of Duty and it's no fun here either. 

 

Tax the middle to subsidize the "needy." 

[MelloYello]

4 minutes ago, North Butte said:

I'm not really into the whole stroke-play tournament mindset but I wouldn't mind playing in a club tournament occasionally under the following conditions:

 

1) Play in less then 4-1/2 hours

2) Walk instead of ride in a cart

3) Stableford scoring so you don't have people grinding out their third putt for 9 on a hole or marching back to the tee box when they can't find their first ball or provisional in the woods.

 

The first two are complete non-starters at my club (and many others). Tournaments require carts and tournament rounds are always pushing 5 hours (if not more). So it hardly matters that nobody at most USA clubs is interesting in Stableford vs. medal play. 

 

 

We're pretty good about time. We never go over 4 hours. It's a time-friendly course layout. 

 

I don't think our tournaments allow walking either. Not sure but it seems customary. It might have something to do with trying to stop cheating. IDK. 

 

We have a Stableford option. I may try that but again, I don't see why we don't do Blue tee, White tee and Stableford as 3 separate events on 3 separate weekends. 

 

We'd all play more golf, have more fun and the club would pull in more money. 

[DaveLeeNC]

3 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

A senior flight? Sure. 

A new-member flight? Why not? 

 

This is skill-based match-making plain and simple and it's been a problem for years in a million competitive ventures. It ruined Call of Duty and it's no fun here either. 

 

Tax the middle to subsidize the "needy." 

 

Then I would "recast" your issue from one of the manner in which the white tee event was run to one of there not being an additional event run in the manner that you would choose (which is not an unreasonable way to run an event assuming that there would be adequate interest in such an event).  Flighted events are kind of a standard thing (right or wrong). 

 

dave

 

 

[Hickory4ever]

I have been scratching my head reading this thread. 
 

The OP enters a club event that is flighted by handicap so that players of different abilities can compete against each other, admittedly played poorly on the second day, now expressing frustration that because someone in another flight had a lower score is questioning the format. If you don’t like flighted events, don’t enter them.

 

I also believe you need to examine your reasons for playing golf. I practice to improve myself without any expectations for recognition, it is for personal satisfaction and growth, nothing more. My handicap is what it is and is not the holy grail by which I am defined as a golfer. To even entertain the idea of sandbagging is abhorrent to me, it is dishonest. 
 

 

 

[Shilgy]

24 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

See though, that's wrong (what I bolded). People are dying to sign up for all the events because they want to participate. That's what it is to be a member.

 

People just want to play. Everyone I spoke to this weekend lamented the fact we did the tournaments on top of each other (Blue tee, White tee, Stableford, etc.) We all would've preferred to break them up and play them individually (thus paying triple). 

 

It means something to someone when they compete and place Top-10. It means a lot of they can be Top-Half or if they can beat their friends.  Competition is competition. 

 

But beating your friend and seeing him walk away with money when you get nothing is just BS. 

 

 

Do you really understand what members pay? My monthly dues are $320 but my bill last month was $1,100+.

 

Members don't gripe about supporting the cause. We invented and preserve the cause with our wallets. Nothing about this is really about the money. It's about doing what right by the members and providing them the best experience. 

 

.

 

Maybe you should pay a bit extra to the guys that scored better than you….and I am guessing from the blues while you played up tees….and still won nada.

Seems like they have a bigger complaint than you-no?

 

Are there members at every club that do a version of what you are proposing? Of course. And everyone tends to know who they are and shuns them in daily games.

 

Bottom line is as a scratch or 1 that day you played like crap and are trying to make some excuse about it as this whole thread has been excuses.  80-90 holes a week isn’t enough to improve? GTFOH

[North Butte]

There was a member of my club who has since moved out of state but he was an infamous "sandbagger" who always seemed to win more than his share of flighted and/or handicapped events. I actually played dozens of times with him over the years in casual rounds and I know exactly how he "sandbagged" (which was actually nothing of the kind).

 

Whether in a club event, tournament, out practicing or playing in daily roll up games he never, ever, not even once took free relief from a divot or a tree root. He never picked up an 18" putt even if the group he was in played gimmes. He played 100+ rounds a year as though he were playing in the last round of a US Open. 

 

I personally would never want to take golf that seriously. But it was no surprise when an actual tournament rolled around he could always shoot within a couple strokes of his handicap each round while all the vanity 'cappers, gimme takers and chokers were blowing up. He practiced grinding under pressure every round and a tournament was just a regular round that happened to give prizes. 

 

If his index was sitting at 5.1 then by god it was 5.1 according to the exact letter of every rule in the book. He was playing against a bunch of "5 handicaps" who would have been 8's and 9's if they played by the rules in their casual rounds. Their claims of him sandbagging were basically complaints that he didn't join in with the vanity 'capping crowd. 

[2bGood]

7 hours ago, MelloYello said:

 

Net / Flighted events are about the only thing available to people like me. 

 

I'm 36yo and I'm a low, single digit. If I play against a field of + Indexes I'll obviously get smoked.

 

Where are golfers of my skill level playing where they have any sort of reasonable chance? 

 

As all of you surely found out yourselves, when you're 36 and have a real life you can't compete with kids who live with no responsibilities other than to practice or people who took up the game when they were young and have been scratch or better for 20+ years.

 

I'm not "elite" in that way and probably never will be. I play as much as 80-90 holes a week and don't have a wife or kids. That's about as much as someone who's 36 could ever do to commit themselves. It's kind of embarrassing if we're honest.  

 

It's easy to say the answer is to just avoid these type of Net / Flighted events but you can't. There's no alternative except the money games we play and even those are manipulated to "balance teams" not to mention any of the roll-it-in-the-fairway, rake-the-short-putts formats you run into.  

 

It's funny that so many are hung up on playing by the RoG and doing their own thing yet if you're not elite enough to compete with the absolute best, none of that really applies. 

 

.

What you are describing is flighted tournaments. You say that you can't realistically compete in an open event and you want to play against players with similar skill levels. Do you want them to hold the flights on different days? That is not very efficient and less fun to have a bunch of small events. 
 

you just need to ignore the other flights as they are essentially playing in another event. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by 2bGood

[MelloYello]

9 hours ago, llewol007 said:

So is the gripe that you are a lower handicap golfer who played bad and wants to get paid because a higher handicap player played to their handicap and won money?

 

Nope. Not at all. 

 

Read the thread or don't comment. 

[No_Ugos]

13 hours ago, tatertot said:

It's frustrating ... you work and practice to get better, and "lose" to guys that don't put in any time or effort into the game. Golf is one of the few "sports" in the world that rewards participants for never improving.

How do you know how much time practicing the other guys you deem unworthy do or don’t do? Do you follow them home? You ASSUME they don’t practice. Maybe they do and their handicap is the best they’ll ever get to. 
 

You come off as an entitled, crying baby and it’s frankly pathetic. Maybe if you spent less time practicing, you’d be happier and would have made it into flight 2 to win money. 
 

The point is, you don’t know what other people do or don’t do and to trash another players skill level is just that, trash. Golf is a gentleman’s game and a game of honor. Something you have shown that you are not nor do you have. 

[North Butte]

I have read the entire thread and still can't make sense of OP's actual complaint. 

 

Honestly, the original post reads as though he wants an event where a) nobody better than him is allowed to enter and b) everybody worse than him is forced to play him straight up. 

 

But that can't be what he really meant so I'm at a loss as to what kinds of events are being asked for here...

[MelloYello]

5 minutes ago, 2bGood said:

What you are describing is flighted tournaments. You say can't realistically compete in an open event and you want to play again players with similar skill levels. Do you wan them to hold the flights on different days? That is not very efficient and less fun to have a bunch of small events. 

 

Yeah, it's occuring to me that maybe this is just the demise of golf as I know it. 

 

SBMM ruined Call of Duty when it was instituted 10 years ago. Go to Reddit and YouTube and you'll find virtually every conversation is tied directly to the decline of the game and to the presence of SBMM. The entire community turned their backs on it when it was at its peak because the game develops decided SBMM was "more fair." 

 

I don't even know the argument for SBMM. Is it to protect handicapped gamers? People with no hands? Does it grows the game (or sell more video games)? It was never even made clear to the community why it was being done and yet the algorithms were always super secret. 

 

In the end, virtually everyone I know just abandoned the game. This feels much the same. There's no justification for Flighting tournaments. 

 

I'm with you. I'll take pride in qualifying for the top flight but that's a lousy alternative to just doing it the honorable way. We have so many tournaments at our club, I don't see why every single one has to be handicapped / flighted / net. 

 

It gets really old, really fast. 

 

It's so frustrating it makes me just want to give up entirely.

[MelloYello]

2 minutes ago, No_Ugos said:

How do you know how much time practicing the other guys you deem unworthy do or don’t do? Do you follow them home? You ASSUME they don’t practice. Maybe they do and their handicap is the best they’ll ever get to. 
 

You come off as an entitled, crying baby and it’s frankly pathetic. Maybe if you spent less time practicing, you’d be happier and would have made it into flight 2 to win money. 
 

The point is, you don’t know what other people do or don’t do and to trash another players skill level is just that, trash. Golf is a gentleman’s game and a game of honor. Something you have shown that you are not nor do you have. 

 

When you are at the club practicing / playing almost every day and the tee sheet(s) are available on the App you know everyone's level of commitment. 

 

So, to answer the question...yeah, you know pretty well how often people are practicing and playing. 

[MelloYello]

11 minutes ago, North Butte said:

I have read the entire thread and still can't make sense of OP's actual complaint. 

 

Honestly, the original post reads as though he wants an event where a) nobody better than him is allowed to enter and b) everybody worse than him is forced to play him straight up. 

 

But that can't be what he really meant so I'm at a loss as to what kinds of events are being asked for here...

 

Yeah, it's weird. I'm still searching my own feelings for what this really is about. 

 

 

I'm realizing now that it's a fundamental discussion involving the often-implemented system of SBMM. It's a weird, progressive idea that basically says, you need to make all different sorts of competitors "winners" and that the difficulty of the game should be tied to your skill. 

 

It's weird. 

 

It's often explained as a "protect the weak" system that I guess, in theory, promotes involvement? It's never been made clear by those in charges of these systems exactly why SBMM is ever implemented. 

 

But I don't think losing matters to anyone. It's paying certain losers based on pre-conceived judgments that is weird.  

 

Video games, golf, college entrance stuff,...all the same thing. Handicapping in general is one thing but it's where, how and why you handicap things that matter. That's the difference. 

 

In my mind, this is not an event that should have anything to do with handicaps at all. 

 

.

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[North Butte]

Oops, this isn't about golf at all is it? Sorry I joined in the discussion.

 

[MelloYello]

I think you'll find every form of competition is subject to these kinds of things. 

 

Do you protect folks with physical handicaps? Sure, but to what extent? What about physical advantages? Do we need a Flighted form on the NFL or NBA? 

 

Fighting has weight classes because...how could it not? There is the Special Olympics....because, well, obviously. 

 

Yeah....there's just no easy answer a lot of the time. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[MelloYello]

4 minutes ago, North Butte said:

Oops, this isn't about golf at all is it? Sorry I joined in the discussion.

 

 

I think a lot of people don't realize how common this stuff is and how often it's already ruin (or been dealt with) elsewhere. 

 

Knowing how SBMM absolutely ruined gaming, I don't see it as a good thing for my golf, personally.