Tournament Play

[Senior_Golfer]

Level Playing Field

OK, a question for those that play in course tournaments, like scramble, schamble, best ball, ECT. How to level the playing field using handicap.

I played in a scamble today, and they had "cut" the handicaps by 50%. 10 and under played the gold tees, 10+ played the blue tees.

That brings question of what value is cutting a players handicap by 50% ?? Or selecting tees by handicap rather than age, or the tees the player normally plays? My point those high handicappers, and there are many say have a handicap of 20. Compared to a player that has a handicap of 4.

Based on cutting by 50% the weaker player (20) gives up 10 strokes to the course. While the better player (4) gives up 2. Now there is a stroke difference between the players of 8 rather than by "established" handicaps of 16.

That to me does not make sense.

Then the tees. If it is 2 man for example required to play gold because they are under a 10 handicap, but normally play whites because they are over 65 and can carry a drive maybe 230 best drive, compared to a younger handicapper under 10 that blasts the ball 290/310 range. They older gentlemen give up around 60 to 90 yards on drives.

I was one of the older players today and hitting my 2nd shot to the par 4 green from 210 plus. The younger twosome was only about 140 or less. Both of us with the same handicaps but because of age lost distance.

Now I know the Pro's at the course wanted to make to make it fair, but I think they sometimes get lost in the moment.

Please offer your honest opinions on this subject.

Tee it Up

[schlyer]

Because its a scramble, handicaps don't mean much of anything.

But if they are going to be used, they need to adjust them somehow. Tees wasn't the right way to go as handicaps are adjustable based on slope.

I'm curious, other than picking what tee you played from, how were the handicaps used in the scoring?

[weekendgolfer1]

I agree with Schlyer. Handicaps in scrambles are almost meaningless, and I have never heard of the tees being chosen by handicap. I think that was a bad idea. Were there a lot of players? Normally, handicaps in scrambles are chosen to figure flights and or partners (A Player vs B Player), and not used for scoring. I am wondering how you would incorporate handicaps with scoring in a scramble...? Anyway, I think the Pro was just trying to shake it up a bit, and make the tournament different than the normal old scramble. I can't hate on the guy, or gal for trying to break up the monotony of the old traditional scramble.

[Senior_Golfer]

Sorry, we were playing a schamble, two man teams. You select the best of the two drives, and from that point play the hole with your ball. So it kind of like a scramble and best ball rolled into one.

I agree with flights rather than handicaps. But this tournament used handicaps, and cut them in half. To repeat that would give the advantage to the lower handicap because they may be giving up on a couple of strokes while the higher handicapper may be giving up several.

The math I used: A 20 handicap is changed to a 10 giving up 10 strokes. A 4 handicap is changed to a 2 only giving up 2 strokes. Where using their established handicap there is a 16 stroke difference between the 4 and 20, after adjusting the handicap the difference is only (10-2 =8). Because the players are playing their own shot, with exception of the drive, their handicap should remain the same.

Making tee selection by handicap rather than age, or playing ability does not make sense either. The senior golfer limited to a shorter drive should not be moved back because of a handicap established at the closer tees.

I hope I cleared up the confusion.. especially between scramble and schamble.

Adjusting handicaps or tees does everything but level the playing field. My opinion. And because it was done I am wondering if my thinking is wrong.

Thanks again

[weekendgolfer1]

I gotcha. Schambles can be a lot fun, but as for changing the tees, that was a really bad idea. That would really give senior teams and the women's teams a massive disadvantage. The more I think about the 50% handicap reduction, I can't help but think he was trying to cut back on sandbagging. Although, I can't see anyway a 50% reduction would eliminate sandbaggers? As we all know, sandbagging is a lot like taxes and we are forced to live with it. I think there are multiple problems and issues we face with USGA handicaps and how we as golfers are almost forced to add strokes just so we can compete with the field. But on another note, I played in a 4 man scramble a few years ago and they did flights after the first 18 holes. The difference in scoring from the first 18 hole round, and the last 18 holes were ridiculous. Anyway, evening out the playing field will never be perfect in my opinion. Unless you only log scores in competition, such as leagues for example. The International Golf League Federation Handicaps used for golfleaguenetwork.com are great because you are handicapped only based on your attested scores, therefore eliminating sandbagging by basing it upon your playing potential. Overall, I think you're right and I give the guy credit for meaning well, but should have thought his process out a little more...

[Senior_Golfer]

Thank you for the input and I agree changing tees is wrong. Tee selection so not be assigned based on handicap alone. I feel the fair way is tee selection based where the player's handicap was established.

Some of the PGA members, like the one setting up the torunament I used for example does not like to give "anyone" the forward tees. Even though he has been in the business for several years as a PGA member he has a personal bias against the forward tees, or acknowledging that as Seniors our range of motion becomes restricted, and hitting the ball 280/320 is not within our reach anymore. Although I hit an occassional 280 plus drive it is rare.

The point is the handicap does NOT set the tee selection, my opinion. Also cutting a 20 handicapper by 10 strokes, is not a way to level the playing field. It puts the higher handicap player at a disadvantage. Prehapes that is the intent of the PGA member. He wants to keep the higher handicapper at home.

This is what my research has shown. The only fair game I have played, with a varity of handicaps, is a Ryder Cup format. This format is exciting and fun. Each team "flights" their players, and the skill of the Captain comes into play as how the pair the players. The handicaps are only used to flight the player. The team is made up of A,B,C players.

Tee it Up

[b_smith07]

The best way I've seen handicaps used is the way the TGA always used to set up the flights in the Father-Son Tournament and still use for the Stableford Championship. They take 90% of your handicap and round up or down, then set your stableford quota after figuring out the net handicap (90%). This way, you curb the bad sandbagging and still affect the lower cappers a little bit. Now bear in mind this is done to your index, so a low capper ( <5-6) may have a course index of 2 so 90% would still round to a 2, but if his index was 1.6 90% of 1.6 is 1.44 which rounds to 1; effectively a 50% cut for the low cap and still 90% for the high capper. It usually works pretty fairly. Also any defecit from your quota is adjusted by half of the defecit for the next round (ie your original quota was 54, you shoot 48, so your defecit is 6...half of (-6) is adjusted from the original quota (54) so your second-day quota is now 51). I think this is the best and most fair way to use handicap to level a field.

[eisen99]

Hey. The 50% handicap reduction in a shamble is pretty much what the USGA recommends as far as I know. Basically the way I look at it and the way I think
it makes sense is that the higher handicapper NEEDS to
get his handicap cut more in order to make things competitive. Basically I believe that the higher handicappers have more to gain by having multiple tee shots to chose from now the OB ball or ball in the woods which they would have had to deal with is being played from the fairway. The lower handicap guy would have be likely been in play anyways and has less to gain with the
additional teeball of the group. Errors standartly made by higher handicap players are routinely negated in formats like this and therefore I believe it's entirely correct and have no issue with cutting caps by a set percentage. Btw I believe the USGA probably has studied this issue before recommending the percentages.
Now for the issue of using handicaps to determine Tees thts an entire different discussion but I believe INDEXES an SLOPES and RATINGS should adjust for that.

[kiwidave]

Down here in most scrambles the prizelist is done on Nett scores. Most 3 man events you play off 25% of total handicap. SO if you have a team of a 5, 10 and 20 handicap (5+10+20=35, 35x0.25 = 8.75), your team handicap is 8.75 for the day. 4man teams it drops down to 20%

[eisen99]

Wow. Net scrambles. That just calls for disaster and
lots bickering complaining and name calling. Wonder what the winning scores are in those? 30 under 40 under net? As a scratch I would take my chances all day long with two or three 30 plus handicaps especially if they knew how to putt at least a little bit if we were playing off a team
handicap. Wow that's the first time I've ever heard of that.