Are You a Vanity Capper?

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Negative handicap is good, strokes gained is good, game golf stuff... It's hard to keep track of +/- anymore 😉

+ handicaps are good. A bogey golfer is about a -20.

You know this.

[DrvFrShow]

I don't play competitive golf or in a golf league. I just like to play casual golf for fun once a week. I play by the rules. I write my scores down on the card. I use Shot Scope to keep track of progress, and have to reconcile SS with my written card after the round. At one point earlier this year I needed a HC for a fun match so I entered my rounds into The Grint to get a handicap I could use. I worked okay. What's more important to me is the gross score. I've never played a round to break net 72. It's always been to break 100, and then to break 90. So I guess I have to say I'm not a vanity capper because I don't really care about them. Today I shot 88 and I played like  - there were good moments, and there were some pretty bad moments.

[Shindig]

12 hours ago, David L Yskes said:

I am not a Vanity Capper,  I'll be honest, I'm sure my handicap is probably 20something idk????   But it all depends on the course... 

On a short n easier course, i could shoot a low 40 over 9 holes, but then struggle on the back 9... 

If the course starts to get long and tough, i could struggle to break 50 over 9 holes..   

But it doesn't mean i won't have my chances at par's and birdies..   

You're describing why the concepts of handicap index and course handicap are different but related things 🙂 

[SG11118]

Slightly.  I consider it more handicap maintenance than vanity handicapping.  I would much rather have people view my handicap as vanity than have them view it as sandbagger.  I believe my handicap is within a fraction of a stroke of where it should be, but I will occasionally skip posting under one of the following categories of scores where my scoring tends to be worse than usual.  These types of rounds probably amount to 10-15% of my rounds:

• Rounds in the first two weeks of the season, even though I am trying my best to score.  After not swinging a club for 6-7 months, and playing in rough early spring course conditions, I don't view those scores as being indicative of my abilities.  Most of the time, I will tell myself going into the round that this is a practice round and I will not be counting it, but if I happen to play the round in my typical scoring range, I would likely post it.
• Occasionally when I am playing a recreational nine with my wife and / or kids and they are really struggling, it leads me to play really sub-par.  If I end up scoring above my reasonable nine hole norm, I will consider these rounds as family time and not post them. 
• Probably one or two rounds a year, I have a fun round where I get really drunk.  I don't view those rounds as indicative of my ability, so I do not post. 
• Post green aerification I might skip posting a round if conditions are really rough.  I have maybe also adjusted my scores to give myself an automatic two putt if I end up three or four putting a hole.  This situation maybe happens one time a year.

[roejye]

I am definitely a vanity cap. I don't play in any leagues or tournaments, and don't plan on doing so, I keep a handicap through my golfpad app for keeping track of personal progress. I will drop a ball where I thought it went out, only taking a stroke penalty. In the situation someone mentioned before where I've hit a shot nowhere near OOB, but I can't find my ball, so I'll just drop and keep playing. I take mulligans, but I'll limit it to 1 off green (drive, approach, chip etc.), and 1 putt. 

[Hugh Jars]

4 hours ago, roejye said:

I am definitely a vanity cap. I don't play in any leagues or tournaments, and don't plan on doing so, I keep a handicap through my golfpad app for keeping track of personal progress. I will drop a ball where I thought it went out, only taking a stroke penalty. In the situation someone mentioned before where I've hit a shot nowhere near OOB, but I can't find my ball, so I'll just drop and keep playing. I take mulligans, but I'll limit it to 1 off green (drive, approach, chip etc.), and 1 putt. 

Consciously choosing to not submit scores, playing mulligans and gimmes, incorrect drops and penalties…I dunno but I kinda consider this cheating.

But I think it’s perhaps a weakness of the system. Golf in Australia is so stringent about ensuring carded rounds are played to the exact rules in formal completion and having your card formally marked. If the WHS is meant to standardise things across the globe then why do these discrepancies exist from country to country?

[Hugh Jars]

Just to add, I’ve always thought the sandbagging ‘myth’ ties into the vanity capping. I don’t buy into the belief that so many golfers deliberately don’t try their best on the course. Sure there are some that do, for sure, but in general I think it’s produced from the cognitive dissonance of jealous vanity handicappers - those who think they are better than they are and manipulate their handicap by ‘forgetting’ mulligans and penalties, and when it comes time to play by the exact rules they can’t shoot anything close to their handicap, but need an outlet to justify why they scored higher than other players of supposedly inferior ability.  

[StuM]

1 hour ago, Hugh Jars said:

5 hours ago, roejye said:

I am definitely a vanity cap. I don't play in any leagues or tournaments, and don't plan on doing so, I keep a handicap through my golfpad app for keeping track of personal progress. I will drop a ball where I thought it went out, only taking a stroke penalty. In the situation someone mentioned before where I've hit a shot nowhere near OOB, but I can't find my ball, so I'll just drop and keep playing. I take mulligans, but I'll limit it to 1 off green (drive, approach, chip etc.), and 1 putt. 

Expand  

Consciously choosing to not submit scores, playing mulligans and gimmes, incorrect drops and penalties…I dunno but I kinda consider this cheating.

I am not sure I consider what  @roejyeis doing as vanity capping.  He is keeping for himself only and not on an official HCP system such as GHIN or The Grint and is not holding it out as a true HCP.  Vanity Cappers try to claim the are better than they really are, I do not hear him doing that.

also, since not in competition and not entering into an official HCP he is not cheating, they are, for all practical purposes, “practice rounds” and every golfer has the right to enjoy as the wish, as long as they do not submit them as an official score.

 

 

[phan52]

I belong to a Club with a fair share of vanity cappers, but there are far more sandbaggers. A lot of the vanity cappers won't play for much money and try to keep their cap at a level to qualify for championships, where they get immediately drummed out by the elite players. I don't get it. What's wrong with winning the A or B flight when that is the level of your ability?

I think my cap is generally very accurate to my abilities. I play very little winter golf to keep my game intact so my cap usually goes up a bit in the spring and back to my norms by June. I play my best golf in the late summer every year so I end up with scores that will stay with me through to the end of the golf season and keeps my cap down. Which is also what I start with at the beginning of the next season. 

 

[Carl3]

The GHIN handicap is a good tool for us to improve our game. It is a way to measure where we are so that we can make the incremental changes to get to our goals. How can you improve what you have not measured? How do you track your progress? The vanity cap is one of those ways where we can "con" ourselves. There is a thread somewhere on this site about that topic.

Get a GHIN number and enter every round where you are not practicing or playing alone. It also helps you to not give up on a round. Some of my best rounds have been when I have had a bad first few holes, but kept grinding away. This is how you gain confidence in your game. I have read here where a bad start can then become a practice round. I would suggest that you don't get into that habit and encourage you to keep grinding away and record the round. If your index goes up, then you know you need to step back and refocus.

My index had bottomed out at a 6.2 and recently went to 6.4 and is back to 6.3. I have been struggling off the tee and had lost confidence. This got me back to the driving range yesterday, where I started to rebuild some of that lost confidence.

I have played a lot of rounds the past few years with people who keep a GHIN and have a good feel where someone might sit on the GHIN spectrum. If someone says they are a 9 or a 12, I have a decent database of that for comparison. Don't con yourself. You are impeding your progress as a golfer and not fooling anyone really besides yourself.

There are better tools out there like arccos, but I don't have that much patience right now for that level of data collection. If I keep progressing in my game before my body gives out, I may move to something like that.

[Shindig]

2 hours ago, phan52 said:

I belong to a Club with a fair share of vanity cappers, but there are far more sandbaggers. A lot of the vanity cappers won't play for much money and try to keep their cap at a level to qualify for championships, where they get immediately drummed out by the elite players. I don't get it. What's wrong with winning the A or B flight when that is the level of your ability?

As someone who won low gross (by two shots) of D-flight in his club championship last year, nothing is wrong with that   

But you knew that already. 

12 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

There are better tools out there like arccos, but I don't have that much patience right now for that level of data collection. If I keep progressing in my game before my body gives out, I may move to something like that.

I'm not familiar with Arccos specifically, but don't a lot of systems do most of the work automatically for you?  ShotScope does, for example. 

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

There are better tools out there like arccos, but I don't have that much patience right now for that level of data collection. If I keep progressing in my game before my body gives out, I may move to something like that.

Yeah…

[darthweasel]

I am...sort of...except completely not. Recently bettered my previous best by 3 full strokes in one round. 2 weeks later, broke 80 again thus making 2 of my 4 ever rounds breaking 80 in the last 2 weeks. On a completely unrelated not, my cap dropped nearly 4 points in the last 2 weeks...the first round felt like a fluke but having had one round since where I should have broken 80 but, full disclosure, I did something I rarely do and absolutely choked my way to 3 putt from 5'. That will not happen again for quite some time. 

So while it FEELS like a vanity cap as it is so much lower than it has historically been...it does reflect the scores I have been putting up lately which in turn are a result of the swing redesign I started back in November. Reminds me I should update that thread. I have reached the point where I expect to hit reasonable shots, be around the green in regulation, and make some chips and putts. This Saturday have a tournament where if I play like I have been lately, this course plays to my strengths and I would not be surprised to better my personal best...unless the wind is up in which case I will look like a vanity capper for sure. Regardless, I have no regrets. Every score I believe legal for me to post I post, whether good bad or indifferent. By contrast, my solo rounds I don't post whether good, bad or indifferent. 

With that said...I did see something Dave said that made me question if I know posting rules. Off to ask that question.

 

On 7/22/2022 at 5:21 AM, DaveP043 said:

One of the remaining regional differences under the World Handicap System is the choice of which scores are to be posted.  Given my choice, I'd like to see the USGA move towards the model in the rest of the world.  I'd like to see competition scores be posted, as well as pre-registered and attested casual scores.  I think that would decrease the opportunity for a player to manipulate his (or her) handicap.  

I thought I knew the rules: a round played solo cannot be posted regardless. A round posted with others must be posted and the rules of golf must be followed to the best of my ability. But from your comment, here and elsewhere in the thread...I may be inadvertently recording invalid scores by posting rounds that are accompanied but not attested so to speak. When I play with other people I report those scores...but having seen most of the people I am randomly paired with, they would have no clue what I shot. Should I no longer post those as they are accompanied but not attested?

Full disclosure: it would reduce my posted rounds to strictly tournaments...so that will be 2 this year...and mean my handicap has no relation to my ability as I am indisputably much improved since the last tournament I played nearly a year ago. I do, however, want to be following the rules correctly. Appreciate your feedback (in advance)

[DaveP043]

10 minutes ago, darthweasel said:

I thought I knew the rules: a round played solo cannot be posted regardless. A round posted with others must be posted and the rules of golf must be followed to the best of my ability. But from your comment, here and elsewhere in the thread...I may be inadvertently recording invalid scores by posting rounds that are accompanied but not attested so to speak. When I play with other people I report those scores...but having seen most of the people I am randomly paired with, they would have no clue what I shot. Should I no longer post those as they are accompanied but not attested?

You're fine.  I was trying to identify a change I'd like to see in future revisions to the Handicap Rules in the USGA areas.  I think its a bit off-topic in this thread, so I'll suggest that if we want to continue we should go over here:

 

[klineka]

On 7/23/2022 at 7:12 PM, Hugh Jars said:

Consciously choosing to not submit scores, playing mulligans and gimmes, incorrect drops and penalties…I dunno but I kinda consider this cheating.

But I think it’s perhaps a weakness of the system. Golf in Australia is so stringent about ensuring carded rounds are played to the exact rules in formal completion and having your card formally marked. If the WHS is meant to standardise things across the globe then why do these discrepancies exist from country to country?

@roejye isn't "cheating" and I don't think there's anything wrong with what he's doing.

He's not even registered with GHIN, so the "choosing to not submit scores" doesn't even apply and what he is doing is in no way any reflection of "a weakness of the system" because he's not even in "the system"

He openly admits his "handicap" that he keeps is for his purposes only, he has no intention of entering any tournaments or competitions, and if he did agree to play a match with any of his buddies, so long as they all agree to play by the same set of rules that's all that really matters at the end of the day.

[Hugh Jars]

6 hours ago, klineka said:

@roejye isn't "cheating" and I don't think there's anything wrong with what he's doing.

He's not even registered with GHIN, so the "choosing to not submit scores" doesn't even apply and what he is doing is in no way any reflection of "a weakness of the system" because he's not even in "the system"

He openly admits his "handicap" that he keeps is for his purposes only, he has no intention of entering any tournaments or competitions, and if he did agree to play a match with any of his buddies, so long as they all agree to play by the same set of rules that's all that really matters at the end of the day.

Yes fair enough if he is not entering his scores towards an actual national handicap system. But tracking handicap using some other means while not playing to the full rules - you're only cheating yourself I believe. I know it was a shock to the system for me going from playing muck-around golf to actual formal competition. 

But anyone who submits a score towards their official handicap (USGA, Golf Australia etc) and does the following:

- takes mulligans

- takes gimmes, assumes two putts when in a certain distance of the hole (seriously who does that!)

- assumes a score on any hole

- incorrectly takes stroke and distance penalties

- submits a scorecard that hasn't been marked and signed off by a playing partner

is blatantly cheating as far as I'm concerned.

In Australia you can get disqualified from competition and even have your Golflink number revoked for doing this, and your course membership reviewed.

As for deciding to not submit a score when they start playing too 'poorly' or too 'well' - how is this possible? Don't you have to at least flag prior to playing a round that you will be entering your score towards your handicap? Again, not submitting a card results in NSA and if you keep doing it your club membership would be looked at I reckon.

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Hugh Jars

[klineka]

5 minutes ago, Hugh Jars said:

But anyone who submits a score towards their official handicap (USGA, Golf Australia etc) and does the following:

- assumes a score on any hole

- submits a scorecard that hasn't been marked and signed off by a playing partner

is blatantly cheating as far as I'm concerned.

There are people far more knowledgeable about this kind of stuff than I am but I'm pretty sure the two bullet points that I left in your quote are two that people can do and still submit valid rounds for USGA handicapping purposes. 

If the rules allow it then it's not cheating.

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, klineka said:

If the rules allow it then it's not cheating.

Came here to say the same.