Should there be a tournament only handicap system? Playing during the week when tees are up and pins are easy hurts people.

A couple guys at my home course are pissed off that my handicap is a 6 and some of them are as low as 7 or 8 and they can't believe "That i'm only giving them a stroke or 2" There are some big money tournaments coming up and I admit that there is no way they should only get a stroke or 2 from me.... But the problem is that Im young and I work, these guys are mostly retired and play all week when the tees are up and the pins are easy. Then on the weekends everything plays back and tough. It's not my fault they play during the week and those cards go in. Does anyone think there should be a tournament handicap only for this situation? I don't think I should be ridiculed because I only play tournaments.

When I say "tees are up" Im referring to a 228 par 3 that the blue tees will have it around 200 during the week. On the weekend they are moved back to the tips. Same color tees, just put in different locations.  Everyone once in a while I'll play on a wednesday and I shoot lights out because all the pins are accessible and it just plays easier. So pretty much these guys handicaps are kinda from the white tees (even though they are blue) and when they play in tourneys everything is back.

I don't play the same courses often enough (heck, I don't play any courses often enough) to know, but it seems to me that it would make a lot more sense for courses to move tees up and have easy pins on the heavily trafficked weekends to keep everything moving, and leave the difficult pins and back tees for the quiet weekdays.

I also can't imagine that many courses would play that consistently harder just by moving the tees back a little.  I mean, it can't be more than 10-15 yards difference from the front of the tee area to the back, can it?  And if it could, then the superintendent is dumb for setting the course up like that.  If you have a course that plays so drastically different weekend to weekday from the "same" tees then this problem must be rampant, not just exclusive to you and your buddies.

I'm more inclined to agree with what Erik inferred, and that is that your buddies are not being quite fair to themselves with gimmes or foot wedges or something else that accounts for the discrepancies.

That's what they do in Europe. Only tournament scores count.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444508504577595520292184822.html

The downside is that it is slow to change and you may have outplayed your handicap if you haven't posted a score in a while.

While I love iacas' direct answer, I'd agree that there should be two tracked handicaps - tournament and non tournament stroke rounds.  Certainly helps in a situation like yours and would also have the added benefit of exposing those danged sandbaggers who always seem to post the impossible round come prize time.

I'd even also add the the current handicap system should be tweaked a bit, although I know I will be in the minority on my viewpoint.  This is in part due to the phoenomenom you cite of tournament pins being placed more difficult and tees being in their appropriate locations, and sometimes even moved back from that point (leading the course to play slightly to moderately more difficult than its normal course rating).

The main change I'd add would be that, for given ranges of handicaps, only certain scores from the appropriate tees should be used in the calculation.  Thus, if you are say 0-4, you could only use scores from 6700+ yards or maybe something like a course rating tougher than 72.5/130.  From 5-12, something like 6400+ or 71.0/120.  Just kind of winging it here, but you get the idea.  The goal is basically to get players of certain abilities to play every practice round closer to the round they would likely see in a tournament, and thus eliminate the vanity cap 'shock effect' that happens when a player realizes his cap isn't really legit in a tournament setting.

As for your friends' above, they really need to play from further back if they plan on playing 'big money' tournaments, and of course putt out all the gimmes as well.

UK (CONGU) is part of Europe, not The Europe (EGA). In EGA you can enter EDS (Extra Day Score), and I thought CONGU would also allow similar entries, but not used that much?

If the whole length of the course is changed enough from the rated one, the course rating is not valid for handicapping purposes. Of course increasing par 3 by 30 yards has more effect in difficulty than increasing/decreasing par 5 by same amount.

If they are doing that then the course should have a different rating and slope for that setup.  It isn't the players' fault if the course management doesn't know what they are doing.

My home course is the same general length and difficulty day in and day out.  The tee markers are always in the tee box that they are rated from, and in general if the tee is forward in the box, then the hole is cut back, and if the tee is back then the hole is cut toward the front of the green, keeping the course at approximately the same length all of the time.  I really don't think I've ever played a course that was set up with a significant difference just because it was the weekend.  Even for Men's Club tournaments, the course was only set up for tournament play for the club championship, and all that meant was that the lower flights played a few holes from the back tees instead of the usual middle tees.  First flight always played from the back tees, so that didn't change for them unless they played the white tees during the week, and if they did the course rating and slope were different so the handicap calculation for any of those rounds was made with different numbers.

I thought the current system tracks tournament scores separately (and may give you some sort of handicap penalty if you shoot too low), but don`t know how this works??  I played in one club match play tournament where I was conceded putts I would normally try to hole (and sometimes miss) and skipped the 18th hole.  I turned in the score, but did not enter it as a "tournament" round...should I have?

I have played some courses where it seemed that all the tees were up from the marker which the rating was based off of and agree that this does not seem fair to those who play that day.  Not sure if it is a weekend/mid week thing, but some courses definitely try to make it play harder/easier (including pins) depending on the type of play/players they expect.

I also think a handicapping bias can be created depending on the time of day a player normally plays.  While it might not be the case for all courses, I find I play tend to better in the morning when there tends to be less wind and smoother greens.  Additionally, some players only play when it is sunny and calm while others are more apt to go out and test themselves in the wind and rain.  Under the current system, the course rating is the same both days.

I noticed that you can "manually" post a round and although I haven`t done this, suspect that you can enter your own course rating and slope instead of using the pre-populated fields.  What does the handicapping manual say about this?  If I play a course where all the "blue" tees are even with the "white" markers, can I just select that I played from the white tees?  What if half are even with the white markers and half are even with the blue markers?  Can I manually enter a course rating/slope halfway between blue and white?

It would be more work, but it seems like it would be possible to enter your tee off time and the type of weather you had.  Still more work, but course that drastically change their difficulty from day to day could enter an adjusted course rating.  If the USGA got accurate data and enough rounds posted, they could cross reference weather and ratings adjustments to see if players actually scored higher or lower.

Scores entered as tournament scores, if done correctly, will be flagged with a "T".  This is so that they can be identified and tracked if a trend of some sort should develop.  This would also require an active handicap chairman to keep tabs on them and make note of any such trend.  My home Men's Club had active handicap tracking through the handicap committee (and members were "adjusted" if a suspicious trend developed), but it seems that many do not.  There is no automatic method that I know of that would just track tournament scores.  Some clubs block the members from entering their own scores, and only enter tournament scores for handicap, but this is a bit of a lazy way out.  It makes handicap changes occur very slowly, often much slower than the player's advancement, so that he competes with an inflated handicap any time when his game is in an improvement mode.

Seems like something is amiss with their handicaps. My scores and the scores of those I play with regularly don't fluxuate enough to worry about when we play courses of different length and difficulty. Part of playing golf is making adjustments as conditions change. I've got more to worry about than 28y and it sounds like they do too. The inconsistencies in my game aren't a result of distance, it's all about unforced error. It sounds like you're a better player and their handicaps are the result of the afore mentioned weekday creativity, gimmes, improving lies etc.

Sorry, Im leaving around a very key part in all of this. Didn't really think of it. This is a par 3 course. So the tees during the week are a huge difference. When they are playing during the week they are still in tourneys but only nickel and dime tourneys. On the weekends its hundreds on the line. Not crazy money but enough for people to complain about. Also this is the #1 longest par 3 course in the US so its not pitch and putt. 7 holes are over 210 yards, and I think 14 of them are over 170. So during the week the 10th hole which is 242 could be playing 190 so the differences are absolutely huge.

The course should be rotating their setups as Fourputt said so that it plays roughly the same total distance though each hole will vary.  I know some courses use a 6-6-6 approach with 6 holes having tees forward (and pins back), 6 tees and pins in the middle and 6 back/forward.  This also helps in evening out wear on the tee boxes and greens by moving the most heavily used portions to a different 3rd of the green and tee each day.

But I think that Erik has hit pretty close to the truth.  How many mulligans, gimmes and improved lies go into their weekday rounds that they can't take advantage of during a match?

Being a par 3 course would make a big difference but rotation between locations on the tee box would still be a plus.

0 mulligans. During the week its still small tourneys, but only 8,12,16 guys. Playing for very small stakes but everything has to go in i think they do a low gross.