Sandbagging in League Play

I think you're being too kind.

Here's how we take care of sandbaggers in our league. If they have a blow up hole, like +3 or more, you give them the putt as soon as they get the ball on the green. Doesn't matter if its 40'. They suffered enough. For our league, we take only a certain amount of handicap rounds out of your last ten. So the handicaps are weighted down more to.

I guess I'll never understand why people don't take any pride in how many points they have to get. Who wants to get 30 points and "beat" a guy that gets 40 points? To me it's like "Yeah, I might have won but you kicked my butt." Less than bittersweet to me.

I never want to beat somebody because I had to get less points than they did and it's embarrassing to me when that happens. My goal is always to improve my points every week until I have to get the same as the best players in the league. I usually don't reach that goal (depending on the competition) but that's the goal anyway, and most years I at least get close by the end.

We play nine holes and you have to make your points quota. This guy I played had three birdies, 3 pars and two bogies. He was one over his points quota and I was 3 points from my quota. When he knew he one our game he made sure not to earn points. He took a triple bogie when he was 20 feet behind the green, lying two. So he thinks its a good strategy to winning the league championship. People complain about it but he and his partner have won now for several years. This is my first year in this league. And it will be my last if they don't ban them.

Then talk to the guy who runs it and change the format. Go with some sort of combination match + stroke play. the way we do it is, we have four member teams (you can do two member teams), and you handicap adjust for holes and net. So if your handicap difference is 2, you give the other guy two strokes on net, and he gets a stroke on the two hardest holes on the 9. So, you count up how many holes won, then you tally net. If you get net, you get a +2 to your holes won. So potentially you can win 11-0, seen it done before, its not pretty ;)

But i think this method works better because your actually playing a match against someone. If a guy takes a triple bogey he brings loosing net into play. Believe me, i've tied some matches before because i had a triple bogey on a hole, but basically played better than my handicap for most of the round.

Even if you sandbag, So if you sandbag a hole, and end up loosing net, that's a 3 point swing in the match.

Our league USED to have a sandbagger problem many years ago and they switch formats. We play nine holes, the worst you can get on a hole is a 10. Then to figure handicap the worst you can get on a hole is 3 over. So if you shoot an 8 on a par four it's shooting a 7 for handicap but 8 for your score. Then we take the last 5 weeks of scores and throw out the highest score and use the 4 left to determine handicap. This helps deter sandbagging plus also doesn't kill you if you have a blow up night. We score head to head plus team points.

I've never played in a league, so I don't even understand the language.  What's a "quota"?

I played in a tournament men's club.  We played tournament golf, both stroke and match play.  There were 4 different match brackets:  Singles - scratch, handicap and senior; and partner better ball (fourball).  In stroke play we ran 15 handicapped tournaments, some one round, some 2 round, and the club championship which was 3 rounds.  Our charter allowed for up to 250 members, and we were managed by an elected board of directors, with among other committees, an active handicap and rules committee.  Unusual scores were examined and if there was any hint of impropriety, the player's handicap was frozen until it could be reviewed.  During my 4 years on the board, we only had one overt case of sandbagging, and his cap was adjusted to reflect only tournament scores.  He promptly quit the club.  To my knowledge there was only one other significant case and he quit just because the atmosphere was not very comfortable for him in the restaurant after a round.  He finally got the hint.

I never realized until I started hanging out on golf forums just how well managed our club was.  These things that you all seem to have had to deal with just never happened for us.  Competitions were conducted under the Rules of Golf, and handicaps were regularly reviewed.  We tried to catch potential problems early and keep them small.  Because of my experience in the club, I would have a hard time in many of your leagues.  I'd either make so much noise that I'd get ejected, or I'd quit if these situations were allowed to continue.  That kind of stuff just isn't golf for me.

I imagine they're playing some form of modified stableford.  The "quota" is the base points (fixed total score) that each competitor has to attain to match their handicap.  Generally calculated by subtracting their hcp from 36 points.  An 15 hcp player will have a "quota" of 21 points.  If they score 23 points, they're +2 to their quota.....

Okay, I guess.  I've played Stableford (we had one competition each year with a modified Stableford) but we never played to any quota.  We scored the points on each hole, adjusted for handicap (make par on a hole where you get a handicap stroke and you get the birdie Stableford points), then total points for the round.  No laying back or sandbagging - we were trying to win a 36 hole tournament.  The more points you get the higher you place in your flight.  With usually 6 flights and paying 3 or 4 places in each flight, you tried your best to beat the other guys.

you shouldn't be recording a handicap for match play and if it is stroke play the rules deny you the right to give putts, all putts much be putted. Sandbagging is actually not legal under the handicap rules, if you says he is doing it, then report him, he should be disqualified.

While I don't understand most of what's being discussed in this thread regarding quotas, I will say that this likely would have resulted in my first on-course golf fight.

I'm kidding, but seriously, I would have been pissed and likely would have told him to his face that I was gonna repeat his quote to the handicap administrator or whatever they're called, and told him to f**k off.