Handicap Scale of difficulty

[retep]

does this pic make sense? trying to quantify the diff as hcap changes

Howdy hi..
So i am thinking about my handicap. I am 15. I was 24 not too long ago. I think i can see 10-12...
However... Past that it must be exponentially difficult to improve. I've heard it said here before, but what is the scale?


So does this make any sense? I'm making up the numbers... obviously it is harder to move from 15 to 10 than it was from 20 to 15... but how much???

Comments?

[bradski]

I honestly think it depends on what your problems are. shouldn't be that far out of sight. about four shots per sound to get to a twelve.

[teejaywhy]

Your graph shows the general feel of what I believe to be true, however I think it is impossible to measure "difficulty" with real numbers. You must also consider that each golfer is different.

[crtssxc]

I think this is very player dependent based on what part of their game is suffering, and what is easiest to improve on. I will try to help by giving you my progression from when I picked up the game again.

from 20 to 15 took about a year
from 15-12 took about a year
from 12 to 8.5 took 1.5 years


from 8.5 back to 10.5 took about 6 months ha

So for me I shaved 5 strokes the first year, 3 the next and an average of 2ish/yr the next year and a half. However, you also have to factor in rounds played for me it was probably as follows:

yr 1 - 20
yr 2 - 35
yrs3 &4 - 70

So that means:

yr 1 - down a stroke every 4 rounds
yr 2 - down a stroke every 12 rounds (ish)
yrs 3&4 - down a stroke every 21.5 rounds


So going 15 to 12 was 3 times harder for me and going 12 to 8 was 2 times harder than that (5.5 times harder than 20 to 15)

hope that helps... but I know it probably doesnt

[rustyputterguy]

That graph needs to be revised to demonstrate lowering your handicap vs. the number of broken clubs... :P

[Pepperturbo]

I am sorry people – a difficulty chart can only have a few purposes; "intimate" and perhaps convey the prevailing attitude of far too many golfers; for one reason or another they couldn’t reach single digit so reaching scratch is impossible.

Thinking about any given stage of learning as being more difficult then other stages is a precursor for feeling overwhelmed and perhaps giving up on a goal. Over my years the most annoying people have always been those that said this or that couldn’t be done… For lack of a more accurate label let’s refer to them as losers… NOT because they couldn’t accomplish single digit or what ever their lofty goal was, but because they don’t want to believe or support anyone else that might accomplish what they could not.

Highly successful people exist for many reasons; one is a roll model. My attitude has always been if they can do it so can I. How that translates to my reality is when we get up in the morning we’re ALL created equal; it’s our attitude, behavior and what we do after we put our pants on that drives one to accomplished goals while others conjure excuses and or quietly daydream.

When I took up the game at forty years old I set a lofty goal of reaching scratch. The sad part of my goal was listening to the number of people that said don’t' expect to progress much; single digit is out of reach, you’re too old, and forget about reaching scratch… I reached 8 index in under five years… the rest is history. Forget about stages and implications of difficulty; it can only slow you down!

[8thehardway]

As others said, it depends on what skills need improvement or can't be meaningfully improved. If you reached a 15 h/c while carding 38 putts per round you could improve quickly but if, after lessons, strength & flexability training and practice your max drives are 200 yards in the middle of the fairway you may have reached your limits.

Magazines have run different drills showing, for ex, that a 10 h/c will get up and down from 10 feet off the green to a pin 30 feet away 2/5, a scratch golfer 4/5, etc. I think the answer lies in
--weighting each area - drives, putts, chips, irons, etc. - in relation to it's contribution to score.
--comparing your ability in each area
--assessing the time needed to improve in areas that are necessary to attain your h/c goals.

[crtssxc]

[quote name='Pepperturbo' post='1993216' date='Oct 7 2009, 07:14 PM']I am sorry people – a difficulty chart can only have a few purposes; "intimate" and perhaps convey the prevailing attitude of far too many golfers; for one reason or another they couldn’t reach single digit so reaching scratch is impossible.

Thinking about any given stage of learning as being more difficult then other stages is a precursor for feeling overwhelmed and perhaps giving up on a goal. Over my years the most annoying people have always been those that said this or that couldn’t be done… For lack of a more accurate label let’s refer to them as losers… NOT because they couldn’t accomplish single digit or what ever their lofty goal was, but because they don’t want to believe or support anyone else that might accomplish what they could not.

Highly successful people exist for many reasons; one is a roll model. My attitude has always been if they can do it so can I. How that translates to my reality is when we get up in the morning we’re ALL created equal; it’s our attitude, behavior and what we do after we put our pants on that drives one to accomplished goals while others conjure excuses and or quietly daydream.

When I took up the game at forty years old I set a lofty goal of reaching scratch. The sad part of my goal was listening to the number of people that said don’t' expect to progress much; single digit is out of reach, you’re too old, and forget about reaching scratch… I reached 8 index in under five years… the rest is history. Forget about stages and implications of difficulty; it can only slow you down![/quote]

While I agree with you that you cannot THINK that it is going to take you longer, but statistically it is going to. If you step on the tee thinking it is going to kill you, it will; have to stay confident.

However, when you are a 30 handicap, it is easier to drop 10 shots because there are more shots that are wasted per round (you are taking 105ish, so its dropping less than 9.5% of shots). Going from a 10 to scratch there are fewer (taking 85ish so you need to drop 11.8%).

[OldSkoolTexan]

[quote name='8thehardway' post='1993249' date='Oct 7 2009, 06:28 PM']As others said, it depends on what skills need improvement or can't be meaningfully improved. If you reached a 15 h/c while carding 38 putts per round you could improve quickly but if, after lessons, strength & flexability training and practice your max drives are 200 yards in the middle of the fairway you may have reached your limits. Magazines have run different drills showing, for ex, that a 10 h/c will get up and down from 10 feet off the green to a pin 30 feet away 2/5, a scratch golfer 4/5, etc. I think the answer lies in --weighting each area - drives, putts, chips, irons, etc. - in relation to it's contribution to score.--comparing your ability in each area--assessing the time needed to improve in areas that are necessary to attain your h/c goals.[/quote]Definitely. Isnt it like 65% - 70% of shots are inside 140yds? Getting up and down is THE area that really make a difference in lowering scores. As well as increasing confidence in iron play when you no longer fear a short side miss, bunkers, etc..Wedge work and putting work should bring the most immediate results....

[TheLastDon]

Obviously it will take longer to get from 10 to scratch than from 30 to 15. There are simply more ways to improve when you are at that high hcp. The lower you go the more focused your improvement has to be. That being said, for those that want to improve it's much easier with today's equipment than it was say 15-20 years ago. With the equipment and training/teaching available, I believe that anyone can become a single digit hcp if they put the time and effort in.

Not everyone can be a scratch golfer, in my opinion at least. A golfer has to have a certain amount of athletic ability and natural talent for the game to be able to get to scratch, in addition to the work required to become a single digit. There's nothing wrong with that, all sports are like that. But there is nothing stopping anyone from being able to become a single digit hcp except there willingness to put the time in required to improve.

[im a doughball]

[quote name='TheLastDon' post='1994028' date='Oct 8 2009, 02:03 AM']...Not everyone can be a scratch golfer, in my opinion at least. A golfer has to have a certain amount of athletic ability and natural talent for the game to be able to get to scratch...[/quote]


Two words, Tom Kite. Zero athletic ability, zero natural talent. The guy got some good instruction, went all Ben Hogan and dug it out of the ground. I would be willing to bet at the peak of his career he was at least a +5.

[OldSkoolTexan]

[quote name='im a doughball' post='1994048' date='Oct 8 2009, 01:17 AM'][quote name='TheLastDon' post='1994028' date='Oct 8 2009, 02:03 AM']...Not everyone can be a scratch golfer, in my opinion at least. A golfer has to have a certain amount of athletic ability and natural talent for the game to be able to get to scratch...[/quote]Two words, Tom Kite. Zero athletic ability, zero natural talent. The guy got some good instruction, went all Ben Hogan and dug it out of the ground. I would be willing to bet at the peak of his career he was at least a +5.[/quote]No doubt... He was the opposite of Crenshaw, who was an athletic, feel player. Kite was a range rat, Ben didnt care for the range and preferred to just go play 36 holes a day or whatever.Proves there is more than one way to get it done. Im pretty sure you wouldnt look at Stadler and think, man that guy is an athlete....

[PinkiPig]

I think except for the talent and the athletic basics you need to have for golf as-well. You need to focus and relate your problem and weak points. If someone with hcp 10 has no problems with his swing and has several problems with short play. It is much easier for him to encounter lower scores. If someone needs to practice the full swing and try to develop his swing and avoid bad shots he has much more to do.
But well in both ways you need to be focused of your targets.

I had one young player and his mother on a round with me. He told me, that he dropped from 33-14.5. He told me about his bad putting and explained me the amazing drives and greenhits. After the chat with him his mother had entered the conversation, and told me about his swing reconsideration from his clubpro the last two weeks. So the idea was to switch his swing after this tremendous year. This boy`s swing were crashed only because of stupid thinking that every swing should look like David Toms or any pro on earth. But thats another point. His swing was good and putting was bad. I think until hcp 9 you are able to fix with a good swing a lot.

Btw I like Kevin Stadler, very sad that he missed his win at the Playoff at Wyndham Championship 5 weeks ago.

[CHRIS509]

I clicked on this thread out of curiosity and all I can say is how negative it all is.
Spending time designing a graph that shows you how hard something “might” be,
Then receiving posts quoting 3,4, 5 years to do something is just so negative it’s unreal. Get a grip guys.

No one said golf was easy, if it was would any of us play it? I’m a straight talker so I’ll get to the point, to get proficient at anything takes some time, work, commitment and above all a positive attitude.
If that’s not you, then stay a weekender and just enjoy your days out with your mates, but please don’t be the guy in the club house griping about the fact you can’t do this or you can’t do that!

Theirs “Millions” of scratch players around the world! Why can’t you be one of them?

If you want it “STEP UP TO THE PLATE”, I might get burnt for this post, but I really don’t care, the truth hurts!

Cheers Chris

[AndyJ]

[quote name='crtssxc' post='1993006' date='Oct 7 2009, 10:06 PM']I think this is very player dependent based on what part of their game is suffering, and what is easiest to improve on. I will try to help by giving you my progression from when I picked up the game again.

from 20 to 15 took about a year
from 15-12 took about a year
from 12 to 8.5 took 1.5 years


from 8.5 back to 10.5 took about 6 months ha

So for me I shaved 5 strokes the first year, 3 the next and an average of 2ish/yr the next year and a half. However, you also have to factor in rounds played for me it was probably as follows:

yr 1 - 20
yr 2 - 35
yrs3 &4 - 70

So that means:

yr 1 - down a stroke every 4 rounds
yr 2 - down a stroke every 12 rounds (ish)
yrs 3&4 - down a stroke every 21.5 rounds


So going 15 to 12 was 3 times harder for me and going 12 to 8 was 2 times harder than that (5.5 times harder than 20 to 15)

hope that helps... but I know it probably doesnt[/quote]

Interesting stats that show a quick improvement compared to me.

I've analysed my last few years in a slightly different way showing number of games and average score over the year plus the how many rounds to reduce a stroke stat you used.

In order, Year - Number of Games in that year - Average over par - Number of rounds to reduce by one stroke:

2002 - 5 games - 36 -
2003 - 19 games - 29 - 3 rounds
2004 - 37 games - 21.7 - 5 rounds
2005 - 37 games - 20.0 - 22 rounds
2006 - 59 games - 16.3 - 16 rounds
2007 - 47 games - 16.3 - NA
2008 - 66 games - 15.0 - 51 rounds
2009 - 73 games - 13.7 - 56 rounds (stats to date)

Not sure what this tells you but 2006 was when I first started to concentrate on my short game and in 2007 I started a new job.

It does support the obvious showing it's easier to improve at first but I think it also shows that if you focus on the right areas of your game the improvement continues.

[mozgolf]

There is an awful lot of factors that can influence this. How much time you have to practice, money to take lessons. Years out for work or study.

I went to about 20 in a year then took about 5-6 years to get to a 12 and mainly because I took one lesson near the end of that period. Didnt play for years, but returned to the game a few years back and got down as low as a 5 in under a year. Also the influence of an older wiser head over time with more astute course management that most of us dont think we need when we are 20 somethings has a big influence.

[Gator5]

I generally agree with this chart but it does depend on what the players weaknesses are. This year I finally made it to 'scratch'. Handicap at beginning of year was around 5.9 now it is 0.4. The problem now is I shoot par 72 and my handicap might go up because it replaced a lower score-70!! My playing partners do not understand this-they also don't understand course rating and slope but the is another story. Very difficult to get to scratch and beyond because I feel I am playing better now and my handicap is staying the same or creeping back up. It is so much easier for a 12 handicap to shoot better than their abilities than it is for me to shoot better than mine-I've actually lost money this year by playing good!!

[larrybud]

I don't know how you can put an objective number on difficultly, unless you had a large statistical population of 20 handicappers, who all had the same instruction, and quantified how long it took someone to jump from one handicap range to another. The "difficulty" factor would be those number of days.

IME, however, any time I have improved, and the two things I can think of would be the golf swing, and playing the piano, it seemed to me like it was a sudden jump in improvement.

[Pepperturbo]

If someone wants to advance their golf game the quickest way is leave driver and woods in the garage, and check your ego on the way to the first tee. I know it sounds peculiar to some people, but this proved beneficial to my result.

But, before I go further let me squelch the baloney regarding athletic ability playing a dominate roll in reaching single digit or scratch. In professional golf today it’s prevalent; still it’s NOT required. To prove that just look at the golfers during Arnold Palmers prime. Nobody worked out or stretched, body size and shapes were all over the place as well as many had pretty hefty belt sizes. What is however needed is desire and some self-control.

Back when I started I had the theory of 14 clubs two or three are woods leaving twelve or eleven irons including wedges and putter. Driver and 3wd seemed the most challenging for two huge reasons; they are the longest off the tee and biggest contributors to dispersion. But the bigger reason is they appeal to the male ego while causing the most frustration, hence changed more then other clubs.

When I walk on as a single the most common mistake I see mid-hi caps make is pulling driver or 3 wood on every tee regardless of its length or condition. That golfer is not only hopeful of hitting the ball as far as possible, he’s making a bad decision to satisfy his ego while thinking go for distance even if hit poorly. When combined with his marginal at best short game, he’s spending strokes on the tee just because of the way he thinks; all while overlooking what it takes to score. Oh, as for that darn whispering ego that says hit driver its what real men do and its fun… listen and you’re playing ego golf, not the course and the way golf was intended. If that’s your choice you might as well accept your fate; you’ll struggle regardless because you can’t get out of your own way.

I believe learning to hit irons well is easier then driver and woods, because of one glaring reason they are shorter clubs. All I did was work hard on irons and wedges at the range, followed by putter and when I played a round only used those clubs. Driver and 3wd were left for when my swing was ingrained. Sure it made the round difficult but not any more then the resulting errant positions would if using driver. It took about three years of persistent practice and play routines before I began using driver more. That’s not to say I totally ignored driver/3wd, I just used them sparingly.

In retrospect the learning process provided great rewards, because my choices back then didn’t come from any source or actual experience. It was a theory that paid off. I was playing difficult 6500yd courses without woods and posting decent scores. The more I practiced and played the more accurate my ball striking resulted in better iron distances and greater control; at the same time it pressured wedges and putter.

About four years into the game I began focusing on my driver, 3 wood and wedges, the difference was I was using a fairly grooved swing. My index dropped from 12 into single digit fast.

When I reached 7 it became about minimizing mistakes, self-control and thinking. That’s when my regular work out sessions helped immeasurably towards not loosing distance as I aged. Sorry if this bores the negative in some of you, but it’s written in support for those with hope… Again, it can be done!