Competition ideas for (very) high handicap golf society

Thanks for reading.

I'll go through my golf society first. It's quite small (10 guys) and we normally play once a month throughout March and October. It's been going for a couple of years (I only started playing golf last year) and we have always play stroke play tournaments.

Towards the end of the 2014 season I appointed myself 'handicap secretary' as the previous handicaps were almost plucked out of the air and changed between tournaments. Now, the best guy in our society normally shoots around high 80s - low 90s and the highest guy is capable of scoring in the 120s (mid 110s once!) but often scores in the 130s/140s. The handicaps were previously just based on how many shots people normally scored above the 'best' (we call him scratch) golfer and favoured the higher shooting players, so I changed it. Now I've taken charge I've taken all of last years tournament results, picked the best scores for each player (which I deem to be their 'potential') but like the CONGU handicaps which cap a hole at double bogey, we only cap at triple bogey. So now our 'best' player gets a handicap of 17 and our worst 44. Everyone else is somewhere between this (most around the 100-110 range) We tried capping at double bogey but it was too restricting for the high handicappers, who would have absolutely no chance at winning even when getting their best ever score.

So, based on the society, can anyone suggest any competition formats we could try for the upcoming season?

We find the problem with stroke play is the weaker players will score a 9/10/11/higher on a hole and then lose all motivation. Obviously stableford is meant to cater for this, but I'm not sure how we could do it with such as large range of handicaps with some being very high! Our highest handicapper would get +3 on the hardest 8 and +2 on the rest based on the handicaps! I thought about the highest handicapper getting 28 then basing everyone else off him, but I feel the lower handicappers would be at a major disadvantage.

Any ideas would be great! Thanks

PS Here's the spreadsheet I use for the handicaps. We've not decided yet whether to base off par or SSS, but both are very similar.

I believe USGA handicaps are capped at 36 and you might want to cap yours there. That gives a max of +2 for a Stableford, which is like many tournaments I've played where higher handicapped players will get two strokes on a hole. You can also modify the Stableford upwards so that double bogey is worth something which brings more people in where they would score. And some Stableford tourneys don't deduct any points, so that helps people not worry about blowing up. Note that you might also want to cap when a player picks up, like at nine in your case. Also, have you ever looked at the callaway system? You take the raw score and then there is a chart that you deduct shots to give a daily handicap and then apply to all for that day. That means that a few high holes will be thrown out and deducted and people shouldn't lose interest more than a normal round.

I suggest getting all of the members to keep an official USGA handicap which with Equitable Stroke Control will bring the scores into a more reasonable range.  Chance are that the person who shoots a 148 takes some 12's or 13's on  a few holes which probably does not represent his potential on each hole.  Once you have established handicaps, play medal rounds with the highest score allowable based on ESC.  It's not perfect but will allow for some additional golfers being in the mix and add some additional fun.

Thanks for the quick replies. I'll look into the callaway system a little more tomorrow, it looks quite interesting. Also, the ESC looks interesting too. I'm in the UK so my handicap is a CONGU handicap (I'm one of only two who is a member of a club with an official handicap) and the CONGU system only allows for a maximum double bogey. The USGA system seems a little more forgiving for the high hitters.

The OP is in the UK, so a USGA hcp isn't an option. Nonetheless, I agree that the handicap system, whether USGA or CONGU is designed to level the field to allow players of varying abilities to compete fairly against each other. As such, I also agree that your best option is for everyone to establish and maintain an official handicap and to use those handicaps in your competitions. Failing that, if you and your buddies mostly play with each other, at the same course(s) and from the same tees, you can handicap off of a running average of strokes over par. I'd use something like 80% of the running average over par for the last 6 rounds to help account for the inherent larger variation in scores that higher hcp players have than the better players. Then play your stableford as usual.

I'm not aware of the differences between UK/Europe and USGA handicaps, but years ago I kept the handicaps using the published formula for USGA handicaps and kept a spreadsheet for my league. Whatever formula is used by the R&A;, if different could be used. In the US you can also get official handicaps by being a certain number of golfers without a physical club.