WHS Objections (from one low handicapper)

[DaveLeeNC]

Why The World Handicap System Has Ruined Golf For Low Handicappers | Golf Monthly is quite a rant regarding the WHS. Indexes are too high or they are too low or they are too easily manipulated, etc. The lady who wrote this came from a Congu world and as best as I can determine she doesn't like 

 

• The lack of incremental changes like the Congu system had
• The lack of integrity in what is posted 
• Basing differentials on slope/rating 

 

Having never played (and not even having a deep understanding of) Congu, I don't know what I think of this. But the reaction seems quite visceral to me. And a quick Google search I don't think that she is alone in her perspective here. 

 

FWIW.

 

dave

[Newby]

She has too many personal axes to grind. This is probably a better article from a CONGU based publisher. HowDidiDo is by far, GB&I's (and Europe's) largest supplier of front end WHS data input software.

 

https://www.golfmonthly.com/news/data-reveals-world-handicap-system-is-levelling-playing-field

 

An interesting comment from this article:

 

No system is ever going to give every amateur of every standard an absolutely equal chance. There are too many variables at play for that to happen. But the numbers here show the WHS is doing a better job of keeping things level across the board and giving more players a chance. The Category 1 players might not like it but, going by these stats, any disadvantage they now have is far less than the advantage they had under the old system.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Newby

[nsxguy]

18 minutes ago, DaveLeeNC said:

Why The World Handicap System Has Ruined Golf For Low Handicappers | Golf Monthly is quite a rant regarding the WHS. Indexes are too high or they are too low or they are too easily manipulated, etc. The lady who wrote this came from a Congu world and as best as I can determine she doesn't like 

 

• The lack of incremental changes like the Congu system had
• The lack of integrity in what is posted 
• Basing differentials on slope/rating 

 

Having never played (and not even having a deep understanding of) Congu, I don't know what I think of this. But the reaction seems quite visceral to me. And a quick Google search I don't think that she is alone in her perspective here. 

 

FWIW.

 

dave

 

Interesting rant but certainly not something we haven't seen before, mostly by those either totally or mostly uninformed.

 

But I can certainly understand, somewhat anyway, the culture shock of going from CONGU to WHS.

 

I've played some 250 or so rounds in SE Asia, maybe 25% of which was under CONGU. After trying to understand the system I kinda sorta gave up and just played.

 

It seemed to me that although my 'cap moved upward very slowly, like .1 stroke at a time, it went down considerably faster. I only recall it going down in full-stroke increments.

 

As to the points you mentioned, I don't recall her mentioning a lack of incremental changes, but possibly she's referring to CONGU changing your 'cap more frequently ? As I recall CONGU goes up or down (almost ?) every round. Shoot a high # with WHS and often one's 'cap is not moving upward. i.e. WHS gets recalc'ed after every round but only changes when the best 8 change.

 

As for lack of integrity with what's posted, I was under the impression that in the UK "away" rounds had to be pre-declared and the scores turned in to the club. Play at one's own course is handled. In fact, here in the U.S., a major complaint is players can turn in whatever and wherever they want. Now THAT is a reasonable objection vis-a-vis "integrity".

 

As for differentials,,,,,,, ok, not surprised.

 

She shows her lack of knowledge about handicaps and is showing the same old, same old, why can't I win a net event as a low handicapper ? Where have we heard THAT before ?

 

If she could at least give some empirical evidence that she won noticeably less under the WHS than under CONGU, at least that would be,,,,,,,,,,, "something".

[rogolf]

I wonder if the "mid handicaps" in the old system were inaccurate due to the slow rise but with WHS they are now where they should be (or should have been)?

[Newby]

1 minute ago, nsxguy said:

 

 

It seemed to me that although my 'cap moved upward very slowly, like .1 stroke at a time, it went down considerably faster. I only recall it going down in full-stroke increments.

 

As to the points you mentioned, I don't recall her mentioning a lack of incremental changes, but possibly she's referring to CONGU changing your 'cap more frequently ? As I recall CONGU goes up or down (almost ?) every round. 

 

As for lack of integrity with what's posted, I was under the impression that in the UK "away" rounds had to be pre-declared and the scores turned in to the club. Play at one's own course is handled. In fact, here in the U.S., a major complaint is players can turn in whatever and wherever they want. Now THAT is a reasonable objection vis-a-vis "integrity".

 

 

The CONGU system put players into categories

1 = 1-5, cap: 2 = 6-12, 3 = 13-20, 4 = 21-28, 6 = 29-36, 6 = 37 - 54.

Each category had a buffer zone equal to the category value.

If you played with a diff of zero up to your buffer, no change to your cap

Above your buffer your cap went up by only 0.1 

It would go down by 0.1 x category value for each stroke your differential was below your handicap.

eg H'cap 27.4 (ie cat 4) Diff 5 - you would go down 5 x 0.4 = 2.0 to 25.4

 

CONGU only introduced Supplementary Scores (ie general play) a couple of years before WHS. They must be pre-declared and testified by an approved marker and could be played home or away.

 

Slope didn't come in until WHS, so high cappers didn't get any adjustment for the Course Handicap. So they now have had an effective handicap increase.

[Newby]

12 minutes ago, rogolf said:

I wonder if the "mid handicaps" in the old system were inaccurate due to the slow rise but with WHS they are now where they should be (or should have been)?

I suspect that slope has had a big effect. When WHS was introduced all scores from a couple of years back were re-evaluated using the full WHS process including slope and ignoring buffer zones.

[ThinkingPlus]

22 minutes ago, Newby said:

The CONGU system put players into categories

1 = 1-5, cap: 2 = 6-12, 3 = 13-20, 4 = 21-28, 6 = 29-36, 6 = 37 - 54.

Each category had a buffer zone equal to the category value.

If you played with a diff of zero up to your buffer, no change to your cap

Above your buffer your cap went up by only 0.1 

It would go down by 0.1 x category value for each stroke your differential was below your handicap.

eg H'cap 27.4 (ie cat 4) Diff 5 - you would go down 5 x 0.4 = 2.0 to 25.4

 

CONGU only introduced Supplementary Scores (ie general play) a couple of years before WHS. They must be pre-declared and testified by an approved marker and could be played home or away.

 

Slope didn't come in until WHS, so high cappers didn't get any adjustment for the Course Handicap. So they now have had an effective handicap increase.

Did you feel like there was equity under the CONGU approach? At a quick glance it appears the lower caps had an advantage.

[Newby]

16 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Did you feel like there was equity under the CONGU approach? At a quick glance it appears the lower caps had an advantage.

They  certainly did. Or perhaps more pertinently the higher caps were at a disadvantage

Edited November 16, 2023 by Newby

[nsxguy]

17 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Did you feel like there was equity under the CONGU approach? At a quick glance it appears the lower caps had an advantage.

 

3 minutes ago, Newby said:

They  certainly did.

 

Which certainly at least somewhat explains the author's angst.

[nsxguy]

43 minutes ago, Newby said:

The CONGU system put players into categories

1 = 1-5, cap: 2 = 6-12, 3 = 13-20, 4 = 21-28, 6 = 29-36, 6 = 37 - 54.

Each category had a buffer zone equal to the category value.

If you played with a diff of zero up to your buffer, no change to your cap

Above your buffer your cap went up by only 0.1 

It would go down by 0.1 x category value for each stroke your differential was below your handicap.

eg H'cap 27.4 (ie cat 4) Diff 5 - you would go down 5 x 0.4 = 2.0 to 25.4

 

CONGU only introduced Supplementary Scores (ie general play) a couple of years before WHS. They must be pre-declared and testified by an approved marker and could be played home or away.

 

Slope didn't come in until WHS, so high cappers didn't get any adjustment for the Course Handicap. So they now have had an effective handicap increase.

 

Thanks, that's very interesting. 👍

 

I'd forgotten about buffers (not that I knew what they were ). And I was right on the cusp of 5/6 when I played there.

 

"Diff" - difference between gross (no adjustments ?) and par ?

 

And did CONGU adjust between tee sets - other than the par difference (if any) ?

 

TIA

[rogolf]

14 minutes ago, Newby said:

They  certainly did. Or perhaps more pertinently the higher caps were at a disadvantage

So now the higher handicappers have a handicap which better represents their current ability and, since there are more of them than low(er) handicappers, one of them is likely to win more often - not each one individually, but one of the larger group.

[sui generis]

Scratch players whining about this (or any) handicap system? Oh dear, my tiny violin plays an imperceptible tune for them.  🙄

[Newby]

1 hour ago, nsxguy said:

 

Thanks, that's very interesting. 👍

 

I'd forgotten about buffers (not that I knew what they were ). And I was right on the cusp of 5/6 when I played there.

 

"Diff" - difference between gross (no adjustments ?) and par ?

 

And did CONGU adjust between tee sets - other than the par difference (if any) ?

 

TIA

Each set of tees was given a SSS (Standard Scratch Score equivalent to Course Rating). A few years before WHS the USGA process was fully adopted but the Bogey Rating and Slope were not published.

After a competition (only) an equivalent of the PCC (but by no means the same maths) was calculated and added to the SSS to produce the CSS (Competition Scratch Score).

The 'Diff' was the difference between the gross score (limited by net double bogey) and the CSS. 

[North Butte]

1 hour ago, nsxguy said:

And did CONGU adjust between tee sets - other than the par difference (if any) ?

 

My days of visiting UK were all pre-WHS and I never met a single English, Scottish or Welsh golfer who wasn't horrified when I told them back home we'd have players on different tees competing against each other. It seemed the idea that everyone plays the same tees, always, no exceptions was viewed as a fundamental tenet of the game. So I don't think pre-WHS there would have been any need for adjustments between tees.

[mark m]

4 hours ago, Newby said:

She has too many personal axes to grind. This is probably a better article from a CONGU based publisher. HowDidiDo is by far, GB&I's (and Europe's) largest supplier of front end WHS data input software.

 

https://www.golfmonthly.com/news/data-reveals-world-handicap-system-is-levelling-playing-field

 

An interesting comment from this article:

 

No system is ever going to give every amateur of every standard an absolutely equal chance. There are too many variables at play for that to happen. But the numbers here show the WHS is doing a better job of keeping things level across the board and giving more players a chance. The Category 1 players might not like it but, going by these stats, any disadvantage they now have is far less than the advantage they had under the old system.

Thanks for posting the article. Unfortunately for Carly (mentioned in the first article) and others in Cat 1, they will continue to see no reward for good play unless some changes are made. Here in states what we call “flights” (your categories) are used for the prizes/payouts as well. Or do you use those already in the UK? The article doesn’t say it, but seems to imply the prizes are for the entire field? When I was involved in club leadership, a top priority was gaining participation from the single digit players who were caught between the scratch players - who did well on gross based prizes - and the mid to high guys who dominated the net prizes. A good season long schedule of events, proper course set-up, various ways to win, an engaged handicap committee, and using flights where possible played a big part in our success. Subsequent Boards have never approached our season over season participation levels. It wasn’t easy and I am not sure we will ever get there again because it’s a different club now. 
 

Why did I/we concentrate on the single digit players? They were the core of the club. They played the most and worked at it. By the way, I don’t mean to say you need 5 flights/categories of payouts. Perhaps 2 or 3 will work. But they should experiment a little and perhaps a slightly higher entry fee will be needed to cover the prizes.
 

Below is the second to last paragraph in the article. These first two sentences say it well, and you need to keep them engaged to have good comps. I hope you find a way. 

 

“The problem is that Category 1 players are more consistent and are likely to play more. During the season, they work on their game, find a vein of form, put in more General Play scores and are pleased to see their handicap improving. Casual players in higher categories are capable of rogue low scores but also capable of playing poorly compared to their best and so the average of scores counting to their handicap index stays higher.”

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by mark m

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Newby said:

I suspect that slope has had a big effect.

 

I think so too.

[nsxguy]

3 hours ago, Newby said:

Each set of tees was given a SSS (Standard Scratch Score equivalent to Course Rating). A few years before WHS the USGA process was fully adopted but the Bogey Rating and Slope were not published.

After a competition (only) an equivalent of the PCC (but by no means the same maths) was calculated and added to the SSS to produce the CSS (Competition Scratch Score).

The 'Diff' was the difference between the gross score (limited by net double bogey) and the CSS. 

 

Ahhhhhhh. Thanks.

 

Now I remember Derek explaining those terms to me as well,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, before I blocked it all out.

[Newby]

10 hours ago, mark m said:

Thanks for posting the article. Unfortunately for Carly (mentioned in the first article) and others in Cat 1, they will continue to see no reward for good play unless some changes are made. Here in states what we call “flights” (your categories) are used for the prizes/payouts as well. Or do you use those already in the UK? The article doesn’t say it, but seems to imply the prizes are for the entire field?

 

My impression is that many (most) clubs here do split the prize money distribution into 'divisions. Normally 2, 3 or 4 depending on typical field sizes. Categories are now defunct.

Many clubs, including mine, have constraints on the kudos of winning 'major' competitions. eg minimum of 20 returned scores in the last 12 months, including 12 competition (as opposed to general play) scores.

[Newby]

12 hours ago, nsxguy said:

And did CONGU adjust between tee sets - other than the par difference (if any) ?

 

The UHS system (ie CONGU) allowed for it but was very rarely used. Internally though, clubs would often arrange mixed gender social events using men's and women's tees and pars.

[naval2006]

I'm thousands of miles away from the UK but I feel exactly the same as the author.  I've been stuck with my handicap since the beginning of WHS.  I went down one shot and it took me months of bad scores to gain a fraction back. 

 

And true, there's no longer any chance of winning a weekday net event anymore with the 40 and 50 hdc players around, which is not an issue because as a single digit you know you won't win unless there's a flight or a scratch cat.  But before WHS you could eventually win on any given Sat comp or midweek.  That's gone now.

 

 

[iacas]

Flights, @naval2006.

 

It's just math: it's a lot easier for a 40 handicap to shoot five below their index than a 5 or a 7 or a 2.

[naval2006]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

Flights, @naval2006.

 

It's just math: it's a lot easier for a 40 handicap to shoot five below their index than a 5 or a 7 or a 2.

I fully agree.  Say 5 hdc shooting 68 net is an outstanding round.  But not enough for a midweek medal.

[North Butte]

17 minutes ago, iacas said:

Flights, @naval2006.

 

It's just math: it's a lot easier for a 40 handicap to shoot five below their index than a 5 or a 7 or a 2.

To put it more stat-geeky, both mean and variance of scores decrease as golfer skill becomes greater. Handicapping per se only attempts to equalize the mean differences between golfers of different standards.

 

If it's desired that a large field competition among widely different handicaps will make winning equally likely for low and high handicaps an additional correction needs to be made for the variance differences. Flights are the easiest way to do this.

 

In theory one could mathematically derive a scoring system that standardizes scores in some way that factors in an estimate of each players scoring variance, based on their handicap or even on additional information that could be tracked in their scoring record. But such a system would lack transparency (at least to innumerate or semi-numerate golfers) and I doubt very much it would be acceptable. Probably best to just flight comps and be done with it.

[ChaosTheory]

1 hour ago, North Butte said:

To put it more stat-geeky, both mean and variance of scores decrease as golfer skill becomes greater. Handicapping per se only attempts to equalize the mean differences between golfers of different standards.

 

If it's desired that a large field competition among widely different handicaps will make winning equally likely for low and high handicaps an additional correction needs to be made for the variance differences. Flights are the easiest way to do this.

 

In theory one could mathematically derive a scoring system that standardizes scores in some way that factors in an estimate of each players scoring variance, based on their handicap or even on additional information that could be tracked in their scoring record. But such a system would lack transparency (at least to innumerate or semi-numerate golfers) and I doubt very much it would be acceptable. Probably best to just flight comps and be done with it.

 

So once upon  a time, the Pope Of Slope website had an article about how to come up with handicaps for a group of golfers who don't maintain caps.  I suppose the article is still there.  Anyway, he said they found that using the person's second lowest score of the last 12 months worked very well.  No matter the course par or ratings, provided it was a "normal" 18 hole course. 

 

It would be real interesting to see how something like that would affect the distribution of event wins across handicaps.  I'm one of the many in single digit hell that @mark m described well above.   Trying to win a match against a guy who is getting 21 strokes from me, and then he shoots something in the upper 80s.   I realize that the one score method I mentioned above would be poor for many reasons.  But, could we use the second best score in the past year as some sort of modifier?  Everyone's caps would be lower but also maybe more "fair" for events.

[North Butte]

2 hours ago, Snowman9000 said:

 

So once upon  a time, the Pope Of Slope website had an article about how to come up with handicaps for a group of golfers who don't maintain caps.  I suppose the article is still there.  Anyway, he said they found that using the person's second lowest score of the last 12 months worked very well.  No matter the course par or ratings, provided it was a "normal" 18 hole course. 

 

It would be real interesting to see how something like that would affect the distribution of event wins across handicaps.  I'm one of the many in single digit hell that @mark m described well above.   Trying to win a match against a guy who is getting 21 strokes from me, and then he shoots something in the upper 80s.   I realize that the one score method I mentioned above would be poor for many reasons.  But, could we use the second best score in the past year as some sort of modifier?  Everyone's caps would be lower but also maybe more "fair" for events.

That would be an extremely crude non-parametric way of estimating "what's an unusually good score for this golfer". I don't mean crude as an insult, just in the sense of approximate, first guess type of thing. 

 

If we access to lots of data from golfers with handicaps from, say, +3 to 36 we could run simulations and try a wide range of percentiles or parameters in standard deviation terms and see which of the gives us the best performance in terms of some target outcome. Of course "scores" would need to be something like handicap differentials and not raw scores.

 

In fact, the average of differentials for best 8-of-20 rounds is just such a statistic in the current system. I'm pretty sure it was chosen to provide the closest possible outcome to 50/50 chance of winning between two golfers in a head to head match but they may have had some other target outcome in mind. 

But the "target outcome" is the key. What is being discussed (I think) in this WHS Objection is something more along the lines of "It's equally likely than the winnner in a large field event will be a low handicapper vs. a high handicapper". [Side Note: I think the complainer being quoted actually wants the winner virtually certain to be a low handicapper but I may be not giving Carly enough credit]. Anyway, the quantile of expected scoring distribution that provides that sort of "equity" in a large field is different than the one that works head to head.

[Newby]

1 hour ago, North Butte said:

That would be an extremely crude non-parametric way of estimating "what's an unusually good score for this golfer". I don't mean crude as an insult, just in the sense of approximate, first guess type of thing. 

 

If we access to lots of data from golfers with handicaps from, say, +3 to 36 we could run simulations and try a wide range of percentiles or parameters in standard deviation terms and see which of the gives us the best performance in terms of some target outcome. Of course "scores" would need to be something like handicap differentials and not raw scores.

 

In fact, the average of differentials for best 8-of-20 rounds is just such a statistic in the current system. I'm pretty sure it was chosen to provide the closest possible outcome to 50/50 chance of winning between two golfers in a head to head match but they may have had some other target outcome in mind. 

But the "target outcome" is the key. What is being discussed (I think) in this WHS Objection is something more along the lines of "It's equally likely than the winnner in a large field event will be a low handicapper vs. a high handicapper". [Side Note: I think the complainer being quoted actually wants the winner virtually certain to be a low handicapper but I may be not giving Carly enough credit]. Anyway, the quantile of expected scoring distribution that provides that sort of "equity" in a large field is different than the one that works head to head.

This could/would give us an inkling into how PCC works perhaps 😉 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Newby

[rogolf]

1 hour ago, North Butte said:

That would be an extremely crude non-parametric way of estimating "what's an unusually good score for this golfer". I don't mean crude as an insult, just in the sense of approximate, first guess type of thing. 

 

If we access to lots of data from golfers with handicaps from, say, +3 to 36 we could run simulations and try a wide range of percentiles or parameters in standard deviation terms and see which of the gives us the best performance in terms of some target outcome. Of course "scores" would need to be something like handicap differentials and not raw scores.

 

In fact, the average of differentials for best 8-of-20 rounds is just such a statistic in the current system. I'm pretty sure it was chosen to provide the closest possible outcome to 50/50 chance of winning between two golfers in a head to head match but they may have had some other target outcome in mind. 

But the "target outcome" is the key. What is being discussed (I think) in this WHS Objection is something more along the lines of "It's equally likely than the winnner in a large field event will be a low handicapper vs. a high handicapper". [Side Note: I think the complainer being quoted actually wants the winner virtually certain to be a low handicapper but I may be not giving Carly enough credit]. Anyway, the quantile of expected scoring distribution that provides that sort of "equity" in a large field is different than the one that works head to head.

Somehow you'd likely want to "adjust" the standard deviation of the two groups' scores such that there was less probability of a high handicapper having a very low score and a higher probability of a low handicapper having a lower score.  But that is certainly manipulating the statistical process.  Maybe use the std dev of all the scores (from all players) and apply that to each player?

Or just leave it alone!

[iacas]

Just now, rogolf said:

Or just leave it alone!

This.

[North Butte]

1 hour ago, rogolf said:

Somehow you'd likely want to "adjust" the standard deviation of the two groups' scores such that there was less probability of a high handicapper having a very low score and a higher probability of a low handicapper having a lower score.  But that is certainly manipulating the statistical process.  Maybe use the std dev of all the scores (from all players) and apply that to each player?

Or just leave it alone!

I am not saying anyone should do anything like this, it would be utterly unacceptable to the typical golfer.

 

I was explaining the reason that any conventional handicapping system (no matter how tricksy the system's operators want to be with stuff like PCC or whatever) is going to result in the winner of a large, unflighted comp being some high handicapper far more than often than a low handicapper. It's inherent to any system that does not take the systematically unequal variability (technically called heteroscedasticity) into account.

 

But the proper solution is to just look up the Playing Handicaps on GHIN, flight the damn competition and go play. Anyone dreaming that oh-so-clever maths on the computation of differentials or indices is going to make it possible to do this without flighting in a fantasist. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by North Butte

[Ty_Webb]

On 11/16/2023 at 5:03 PM, North Butte said:

My days of visiting UK were all pre-WHS and I never met a single English, Scottish or Welsh golfer who wasn't horrified when I told them back home we'd have players on different tees competing against each other. It seemed the idea that everyone plays the same tees, always, no exceptions was viewed as a fundamental tenet of the game. So I don't think pre-WHS there would have been any need for adjustments between tees.

 

My club had one event per year where the men and the ladies would both play. They adjusted the ladies' handicaps up by two because their SSS was 2 higher than the men's. That triggered a fair amount of whinging from a certain subset of the men, but to be honest, they were the subset of the men that I would be least concerned about them feeling hard done by.

 

When I was at university, there were a couple of instances of girls playing for one of the teams. They played from the ladies' tees and the boys played from the men's tees. That was a bit obnoxious because where the greenkeepers had decided to put the tees on a given day would impact the advantage of the forward tees over the back ones. But those were the rules. Bit weird, but heyho.