Sandbaggers

[iacas]

This story prompted me to ask this question: what's your worst sandbagger story?

I haven't got any. I've played only on my own terms. I hustled a little as a junior member, but all of my "matches" were simple straight match or stroke play, no handicaps. I don't particularly care for handicap tournaments, in fact.

But I've heard some doozies! Share 'em if you got 'em!

[gas_can]

I don't have one personally. My golf club is incredibly strict about handicapping (yearly peer review, authentication of posted scores). Last month a 56 year old who had been with the club 14 years was kicked out for submitting a false score card. How they figured out it was false has yet to be revealed.

I did hear about one that occurred a couple of years ago during our recruiting tournament (which is the only non handicap limited field we host). A guy with a USGA HCI of 22 entered and was paired with a member. Warming up he would be topping balls and hitting them fat things a 22 HCI would do.

At the first tee he wanted to start off playing for $5 a hole! This immediately threw up red flags in the member's head and he talked his way down to $1. When it was all said and done the guy shot 13 STROKES under his HCI. The member said once every three holes the sandbagger would hit one fat and then his next shot would be three inches from the hole.

What I find most funny is not that the member got hustled, but that the sandbagger didn't even try to hide the fact that he was so good.

Sandbagging is a real sore subject with me. The whole point of the HCI system is so people of varying skill can compete equitably between eachother. Ideally the system works very well but so many people take advantage of it there has to be handicap limits in place now. This is really unfortunate since it prevents a lot of higher handicappers from getting tournament experience early on.