Day 611 - 2026-06-04 Played… 15 holes today. Skipped 10-12 again as there was a group or two. Frustrated. But clear-minded.

+10 46 for nine holes Struggle bus off the tee. No penalties either. I had to hit a punch shot like 4 times on my approach shots. Then it was short game woes. My body just doesn’t want to pivot and it’s causing a lot of inconsistencies. That and I two putted 8 out of 9 greens. Full swing irons were decent when I had a shot at it. 

It was worse than that.  Under 10 course handicap I think was NDB, but 10-19 CH had a maximum score, and 20-29 had a higher one (by one).  Might have been 7 and 8, I'm going from memory here.  When my handicap was low 20s / high teens, I had to look up  my course handicap every time I had a bad hole and adjust before I posted the number.  Now there's maybe one hole per course where that might be an issue, and I have the option to enter hole-by-hole in the GHIN app anyway if I have any doubts.   I remember reading a lot of Dean Knuth's writing 15-20 years ago, when I was starting in golf.  I liked the history of the (old?) handicapping system.  I really like the changes WHS brings with par.  I suppose I'm sorry he doesn't seem to like that change, I thought it solved a problem that had been irking me. 

Wordle 1,811 4/6 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Couple of things. In the UK they play a lot of stableford competitions. 2 points for a net par, 1 for a bogey, 3 for a birdie, 4 for an eagle, 0 for a double bogey or worse. Playing to your handicap typically means getting 36 points, being 18 x 2 points. If your course rating is a long way different from par, then playing to your handicap would mean getting 32 points or 40 points or some such. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that input from the R&A is the reason for the CR-Par adjustment, which brings it to 36 points is playing to your handicap. A round of net pars really should be playing to your handicap. Now it is. Yay. I would think the people most likely to be upset about the CR-Par adjustment would be 6 or 7 indexes whose course is par 72, with a 74/140 rating. 6.5 x 140/113 + 74 - 72 = 10. So the "single figure" golfer who has probably defined himself that way for a long time is now a 10 and getting double digit strokes. Oof. I must admit I'm a 0.0 right now (sure makes the math easy) and if I play Bethpage Black from the blues, suddenly I'm a 7. That takes a little bit of getting used to. It also means I do have to pay attention to the stroke indices to be sure of whether I'm making the net double bogey adjustment properly.  I do think it's much less likely that NDB is applied properly vs the old system where it was max double bogey or max 7 depending on handicap (I think anyway - I know it was max double bogey at my handicap level - I didn't much care about where it changed or what it changed to). NDB is clearly better, but it does mean people either have to adjust it themselves accurately (questionable) or input their hole by hole scores (also questionable). I do it, because I care about it (and don't tend to make too many scores worse than double and also rarely play courses where I'm giving strokes back to the course and would therefore have max bogey on some holes). I'm sure there are many who don't and will just guess or assume. Under the old system, if I was playing a scratch tournament (which is most of my golf), I didn't care what my course handicap or stroke allocations were. They didn't affect my posted scores at all. Now they do (although the MGA and LIGA post all scores at their events themselves directly - something I am very happy about). That is a complication under the new system - one I think is worth it given the benefits, but a complication all the same.