This Guy Is Blatantly Sandbagging!

[imsys0042]

I was going to start a thread, but this seems like the place.  Yesterday I played my matchplay match at my local club.  My opponent is a notorious sandbagger by reputation.  The pro once pulled his tournament rounds from the past several years and said that it is impossible his tournament rounds are legit based on his handicap.

here is what happened last night.  I am getting 4 shots from him.  His current handicap index is 15.3

i shot 45 on the front.   Was down 4 after nine, he had three birdies and shot even par.

I was closed out on thirteen, we halved with a bogey.  That bogey put him one over par for his round.   He then took a triple on 14 and then left.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he lied about his score.   I wrote down on my scorecard what the score was.  He put higher values that didn’t affect the outcome of the match to pad his score and apparently make it not look as obvious.   He shot 36 on the front, but claimed 40.  The higher values for his score were in the online scoring app our club uses.  He did it this way:

I won #7. He had a 2 foot putt for par that if he made would still lose the hole.   He picked up and said it didn’t matter since I won.  He took a 5 instead of a 4 after picking up a gimme.

on #8 his approach shot on this par 4 was 8 inches.  I verbally conceded the putt but I had hit into a hazard.  I finished the hole with a 6.  Instead of birdie he put in for par.

on #9, another par 4, his approach was to 18 inches.  I missed my par putt and then knowing how close I verbally conceded the putt.  I missed my bogey putt, he never conceded mine.  Instead of birdie he put down a bogey.

He padded his score by 4 shots on the front.  And then did again on 10.  I rinsed one and made 6 on a par 4.  I putted out and he was fishing balls out of the lake so I drove off to the next tee.  He had 15 feet laying two but claimed a 5.  
 

love to know the odds of a 15 handicap being even thru 12 holes on a round of golf. 

[klineka]

What is the rating/slope from the tees he played?

If he made 3 more bogies on the last 4 holes (being generous to him) and ended with a 79 that's likely going to give him a net differential of at least -8 or -9 which would be somewhere in the 1:1,000-3,000 odds.

 

I would bring up your specific instances of him increasing his score to the head pro and see what the head pro says. 

[GolfLug]

4 hours ago, imsys0042 said:

I was going to start a thread, but this seems like the place.  Yesterday I played my matchplay match at my local club.  My opponent is a notorious sandbagger by reputation.  The pro once pulled his tournament rounds from the past several years and said that it is impossible his tournament rounds are legit based on his handicap.

here is what happened last night.  I am getting 4 shots from him.  His current handicap index is 15.3

i shot 45 on the front.   Was down 4 after nine, he had three birdies and shot even par.

I was closed out on thirteen, we halved with a bogey.  That bogey put him one over par for his round.   He then took a triple on 14 and then left.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he lied about his score.   I wrote down on my scorecard what the score was.  He put higher values that didn’t affect the outcome of the match to pad his score and apparently make it not look as obvious.   He shot 36 on the front, but claimed 40.  The higher values for his score were in the online scoring app our club uses.  He did it this way:

I won #7. He had a 2 foot putt for par that if he made would still lose the hole.   He picked up and said it didn’t matter since I won.  He took a 5 instead of a 4 after picking up a gimme.

on #8 his approach shot on this par 4 was 8 inches.  I verbally conceded the putt but I had hit into a hazard.  I finished the hole with a 6.  Instead of birdie he put in for par.

on #9, another par 4, his approach was to 18 inches.  I missed my par putt and then knowing how close I verbally conceded the putt.  I missed my bogey putt, he never conceded mine.  Instead of birdie he put down a bogey.

He padded his score by 4 shots on the front.  And then did again on 10.  I rinsed one and made 6 on a par 4.  I putted out and he was fishing balls out of the lake so I drove off to the next tee.  He had 15 feet laying two but claimed a 5.  
 

love to know the odds of a 15 handicap being even thru 12 holes on a round of golf. 

That's not just sandbagging, that's cheating.

Under Rule 3.3 for posting most likely scores, for example if there was a 2 foot putt for par, one can only take one extra stroke from what they lie, meaning par in that instance, not bogey.

I didn't check the other instances but you can. 

Edited April 25 by GolfLug

[imsys0042]

5 hours ago, klineka said:

What is the rating/slope from the tees he played?

If he made 3 more bogies on the last 4 holes (being generous to him) and ended with a 79 that's likely going to give him a net differential of at least -8 or -9 which would be somewhere in the 1:1,000-3,000 odds.

 

I would bring up your specific instances of him increasing his score to the head pro and see what the head pro says. 

He plays from 68.3 / 124.  A combo tee setup of normal mens and seniors.   I play from 69.7/127.   He left after taking a triple on 14 and then leaving.  Which plays to what I think his plan is,   He doesn’t stroke on 14 but would have to take bogey for non completed holes on the way in.   Maybe that’s giving him too much credit, but he found a way to add 4 shots to his score over three holes so….  
 

I looked up his last 20 rounds in GHIN and he has a lot of rounds at easier courses (rating and slope) that are higher than his normal rounds at home.   Since I mostly have his front nine score during the match (36) to go on, he has three nine hole scores at our course posted that are 41-43.

I wrote the whole thing up to the head of our golf association who runs all the tournaments.  Our pro is not involved officially in the tournaments because the golf associations are separate from the club.   He’s pretty well known for this, however I was pretty shocked at how well he played carrying a 15.  

I think eventually they will do something, a lot of people have complained.  The golf association threw someone out a couple of years ago and it was a three month situation where the guy retaliated.  They probably are hesitant to go thru anything like that again.  That is a rather crazy story I might post about later. 

[billchao]

2 hours ago, imsys0042 said:

He’s pretty well known for this

This is the part I don’t get. He’s not even kind of sandbagging, he’s blatantly doing it and submitting scores that are verified to be incorrect. How he’s not banned from competition is beyond me.

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, billchao said:

This is the part I don’t get. He’s not even kind of sandbagging, he’s blatantly doing it and submitting scores that are verified to be incorrect. How he’s not banned from competition is beyond me.

Yeah, this isn't sandbagging. It's outright cheating. He should be banned.

[Vinsk]

Lemme guess….’ We don’t want any confrontation so nobody says anything.’ Sheesh…..Call him out and fix the problem.

[imsys0042]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

Yeah, this isn't sandbagging. It's outright cheating. He should be banned.

 

13 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Lemme guess….’ We don’t want any confrontation so nobody says anything.’ Sheesh…..Call him out and fix the problem.

For such a nice membership, there have been some bad incidents in the past few years.  We had someone voted out a couple of years ago over something he did and he harassed the board members for three months until he moved out of the area.   Generally they’ve tried to do things like tournament handicaps and identify certain people who they know should be lower and adjust it somehow.  I can understand not wanting to go thru something like the guy who was voted out again

i emailed the pro who forwarded it to the handicap committee.  They are going to see what can be done.  I walked someone thru what happened and they are going to nudge him to post the score from the match and see what he does.  Since he didn’t put anything in the electronic scoring past 13, based on how he played 14 and 15 plus having to take bogey on 16-18 for after he left, he should post 83.  We’ll see if it’s even higher,   Since he was really even thru 13, then doubled 14 and parred 15 my guess is he really shot 75 being generous and giving him 2 pars and a bogey on the three holes he didn’t play. 
 

i shot 88, getting 16 shots for my course handicap which is net even and I lost on 13.  We do brackets where handicaps should be within 4-5 of each other.  Most matches only have 1-2 shots as a difference between players 

neither of us posted the score yet.  There was something in the match play rules about whether or not to post your score.  I couldn’t remember if we were supposed to or not.  I don’t think he was going to post that, because even with his inflated score it would be the lowest score in his recent 20. Lucky I didn’t because they want to see what he does post and they don’t want me posting so he can try to calibrate his score.

 

[boogielicious]

I would honestly refuse to play him if it happened again and I would tell him why to his face.

[saevel25]

If he is not taking the correct score, that is cheating. Sandbagging would be him purposely mishitting shots, but still posting a correct score. If it is within your rights by the rules, I would push to have him disqualified for that match and you claim the victory. 

From the USGA Handicap Rulebook

Since this was a legit reason for not playing one or more holes, and if you guys got to the acceptable # of holes played. Then the rest of the scores are filled in per the USGA Handicap Rulebook. I couldn't find it, but I think they get par on a hole they do not get a stroke, and if they get a stroke, it should be the par + strokes on the hole (per handicap). 

[bkuehn1952]

The latest version of the USGA Handicap system requires players who play at least 9 holes but less than 18, to post their actual scores. The USGA/GHIN has a logarithm that will assign scores to the unplayed holes.

No more “par + handicap strokes.” 

[imsys0042]

He posted an 82 for our match.  Using the old par + handicap strokes, he would have shot 77 with the last three holes as not played.  I don’t know the algorithm for how the USGA would complete his round but 82 is what we figure.  So that’s 5 strokes everyone agrees is the beginning of the cheating here.  
 

I’ve spoken with the handicap committee about it and it’s in their hands now.  Whether they take action now, or later, it seems like they want to do something about it.  I told everyone I was playing with this weekend, both rounds, and the punishment ranged from 3-4 tournament ban to permanent ban from their suggestions, but it’s up to the handicap committee and MGA board.

on another note about the algorithm and 9 hole posting.  His last 20 scores I can look up in GHIN have a lot of 9 hole scores where all of them are higher than he is obviously capable.  I wonder if he is using that to sandbag as well.   He frequently posts scores from low slope/course rated courses where he shoots high scores.  He’s beyond basic sandbagging of missing easy putts or deliberately hitting a bad shot to pad his score.

Him and his partner also won the member/member two weeks ago, so a lot of people are unhappy.  Hope something finally changes.

[saevel25]

If someone wants to be dishonest and three put a couple of times or fattest shot once or twice on purpose whatever. It’s tough to prove that it was sandbagging or what not. But, blatantly posting high scores, not using USGA handicap regulations is cheating in every tournament he signs up for.

[NZ Golfer]

A blight on Competition Golf with HC.. bigger the prizes more sandbagging goes on ...sometimes I feel like if I don't sandbag somewhat your going in with a massive dis-advantage ...the best prized Comp I play in each year $5k+ top price(latest LED TV) each player is a local Courses classic two-day two-man team comp $80 entry last year the winners local father son team the son hadn't played for years we were told only recently starting playing again and had a 10 under NETT 62 after he played to par the first day!! he was a so called 22HC !!!! utter BS IMHO I think the next closest was 65 .. I played some of my best GOLF of the year NETT 71 + 70 

Edited July 19 by NZ Golfer

[mailman]

Why are you entering scores for handicapping for a match play round? I didnt think this could be done exactly because of the things you mentioned? Basically when you win or lose a hole its done and dusted and over and pointless either continuing to putt out?

Having said that, my beef is people who only enter team competitions and avoid individual comps to keep their handicaps higher than they should be. It really gets on my nerves when you come across these kinds of golfers.

At least with the new WHS changes, where handicaps can now be altered for team comps this is a step in a good direction to catch these "cheaters".

Edited July 29 by mailman

[iacas]

50 minutes ago, mailman said:

Why are you entering scores for handicapping for a match play round?

Because you can and you’re supposed to. If a two footer for a five is conceded to you, you post a five. If a 20 footer for four is conceded to you, you also post a five. Most likely score.

[DaveP043]

On 7/29/2024 at 6:14 AM, iacas said:

Because you can and you’re supposed to. If a two footer for a five is conceded to you, you post a five. If a 20 footer for four is conceded to you, you also post a five. Most likely score.

There are jurisdictions where match play scores are not posted, I know that was the case in England prior to the 2024 changes, and @mailman appears to be from England.  I'm not sure if they changed or not, but @mailman should check to make sure.

[ChetlovesMer]

On 4/29/2024 at 10:05 AM, saevel25 said:

If he is not taking the correct score, that is cheating. Sandbagging would be him purposely mishitting shots, but still posting a correct score. If it is within your rights by the rules, I would push to have him disqualified for that match and you claim the victory. 

I agree with @saevel25