The Nassau "Automatic" sux, if you lose

[Tom]

ok, today, wednesday, i go out with a foursome; three other guys in my normal saturday morning group. our saturday group has around 12 golfers and each puts in $20 - $15 to the pot and $5 for skins. If you equal your points quota and hit a few birds you can normally win $50 or $60.

today, my partner nominates a "$5 nassau with automatic press" as the game format. in the past, i've played many-a-nassau and quickly deduced, "this means i can lose $15 or win $15 - max. No!!! No!!! No!!! No!!! No!!! No!!! No!!! No!!!

my partner is a 3.3 and i'm a 3.9. our handicaps are 4 and 5. the twosome we were playing, their handicaps are 14 and 15. so, we had to give them 13 strokes.

The problem with this format is a high handicapper can go to the range for a day two and shave 5 strokes off their game, and when two high handicappers are together, they can essentially shoot bogie and win. Unless the other group shoots birdies, which is statistically normally impossible.

So, today at the end of the round with presses and all that s**t, i hand over two twenties - $40. I'm super mad!!!

if there's a moral to the story it might be not to take a low handicapper for your partner if you're a low handicapper because if a high handicapper plays to their handicap or just under, you've got to play out of your fu**ing a*s!!!

[kpaulhus]

That really sucks.

On a side note, how do you like the new irons?

[zeg]

The problem with this format is a high handicapper can go to the range for a day two and shave 5 strokes off their game

Oh how I wish that were true...

I've been trying for months.....

[Tom]

That really sucks.

The irons are really nice. They are bank!

[Tom]

Oh how I wish that were true...

perhaps i should qualify that... in the game, the two high handicappers were together. each had 15 strokes. all they had to do was bogie a hole to have a good shot at halving it. And you're almost guaranteed that one of the two would par any given hole whilst the other bogied, which gives the team a low net of birdie. so, the low handicap team must have a natural birdie to halve.

[Lefty-Golfer]

ok, today, wednesday, i go out with a foursome; three other guys in my normal saturday morning group. our saturday group has around 12 golfers and each puts in $20 - $15 to the pot and $5 for skins. If you equal your points quota and hit a few birds you can normally win $50 or $60.

Here is the problem with your thoughts...they are incorrect. if a 15 shoots his handicap he is at approx. 88...the key is that higher handicaps tend to blow up more on a hole...they don't always leak one shot here and there they tend to give away 4 or 5 holes in a round...keep in mind the HC system only gives higher HC 90 percent of his top 10 rounds. Bottom line is the low HC is playing with a small edge.

Og and the show up at the range a day or two and shave 5 strokes off...LOL that was funny. i know you didn't mean that. Merry Christmas!!

[iacas]

Here is the problem with your thoughts...they are incorrect. if a 15 shoots his handicap he is at approx. 88...the key is that higher handicaps tend to blow up more on a hole...they don't always leak one shot here and there they tend to give away 4 or 5 holes in a round...keep in mind the HC system only gives higher HC 90 percent of his top 10 rounds. Bottom line is the low HC is playing with a small edge.

You got it backwards. The higher handicappers have the edge.

Say they do blow up on 4 or 5 holes, then play par golf on the others (not inconceivable with the partner). So they lose 2 holes a side but are "in" the other 7, and are likely to win half or more of them with the strokes they get. This bears out empirically as well. The more high handicappers you get in games where hole-by-hole performance matters instead of total score (skins, nassau, even a Southern Point type situation, etc.), and the more they partner together, the tougher they are to beat. I don't enjoy playing higher handicappers. It's much easier for them to make a lot of net birdies than it is for me to make actual birdies.

[Tom]

You got it backwards. The higher handicappers have the edge.

Exactly.... a single high handicapper is one thing. a team is another and they are impregnable unless the low handicapper is playing to or under his handicap. with my 3.9 index, i have to shoot a 77 to have a shot. with my partner's 3.3 he has to shoot a 76. the high-hc team with 15 each... they they stroke everywhere. And we were playing one man low net...

[Fourputt]

Try this... play the match for 2 points per hole instead of just 1. That is play for 1 point between the 2 low scores and one point for the lowest of the the 2 high scores on the hole. Example: You and your partner score 4 and 5, they score 5 and 7 but each gets a stroke on the hole. Your 4 is matched with their 5 (net 4), and your 5 is matched with their 7 (net 6). You tie the first point and win the second.

That way, when they both have a bad hole you will normally take 2 points, and when they ham and egg it, you will often halve with one point for each side, or they will only gain 1 point. They will usually only get 2 points when they both have a very good hole or you both have a very bad one. This format tends to even out the scoring when the sides are mismatched. It's how my men's club runs our partner match play tournament each year, and most matches come right down to the wire.

Another suggestion... stay away from automatic presses.

[glebert]

So you only like playing with high handicappers when you are taking their money?