Reverse Sandbagging

[Golfingdad]

I don't know if that's the proper term for it, but I have a friend (for the sake of this post, let's call him "dad") who tells me his handicap is 20.  He's telling the truth, in that his USGA card does say 20 (20.6 actually), however I find this odd because I play with him about once every 3 weeks and he rarely breaks 100.  (Easy course; RTG 68.8, Slope 117)  That number also already reflects the ESC so his scorecard never shows more than an 8.  (He gets frustrated easy and usually picks up when he gets to 8 anyways)

I guess it's a ego thing, but I just don't get it.  If you're shooting 99's and 102's and posting 92's and 93's, where is the satisfaction of seeing your HDCP tick down after a couple of legitimately good scores?

Another source of my frustration is the hole it puts up in if ever we were to play in a tournament together.  I don't know ...

Anybody else know people like this?

[meenman]

*vanity-cap* is the term you are looking for. I used to play with one, but I dont think he understood why I would never partner with him in tournaments. I think that he really believed his scores were real.

[Dormie1360]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Anybody else know people like this?

Yeah.........however they are rare.  Usually they are younger, I see it more in the 22 and under crowd.  Male.  They usually don't play for money.

Someone with that Index on that course should shoot around a 90 or so once every 4 or 5 rounds.

Regards,

John

[newtogolf]

Most of the vanity handicappers that I see are older.  The younger guys just don't understand the rules or don't care so they don't worry about accurate scores.

The older guys with the newest clubs are the ones I usually see go for the foot wedge, the 4' gimme and other tricks all under the guise that they are just having a bad day as we know they could play better than they are.   One guy I've played a few rounds with takes a few mulligans because someone "got in his peripheral vision" when in reality we don't even stand near him when he's taking his turn.

Originally Posted by Dormie1360

Yeah.........however they are rare.  Usually they are younger, I see it more in the 22 and under crowd.  Male.  They usually don't play for money.

Someone with that Index on that course should shoot around a 90 or so once every 4 or 5 rounds.

Regards,

John

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by newtogolf

... and other tricks all under the guise that they are just having a bad day as we know they could play better than they are.

Yup.  It's hilarious and inexplicable but almost every round is "the worst I have played in a long time."  In addition to fudging the scores, gimmes, yadda, yadda, I notice he just "forgets" to post some of the scores altogether.

Reminds me of the grade school teacher cliche of "you are only cheating yourself."

[mirv]

[lumpuckeroo]

I see that "vanity" handicap with my dad also, and he turn's 80 this year.  But his handicap is based on a 9 hole course that is just under 3000 yards and plays much shorter.  It is an old course that use to have sand greens, now grass, and the greens are all about the same small size, round, with few breaks.  Any place on the green is a makeable putt as you won't have more than 20 feet to putt.  He has played over 6000 rounds on that course in the past 20 years, so he knows every inch of the greens.  When he plays other courses he struggles with the putting because he can't read a green, of course he hasn't had to for 20 years.

Also the fairways baked hard like concrete in the summer time so he gets a lot of extra distance, on the 9th hole there is a spot about 30 yards short of the green that if you hit the ball it will bounce forward and roll on the green.  So he will hit a 5 iron from 180 yards, hit "the spot" and end up on the green and he thinks he can hit a 5 iron 180 yards.  He regularly shots below his age at his course, but when he plays on a regular course with me he always struggles, even thought the course we play is right at 6000 yards.

He still plays a good game for being 80, and I hope I'm still alive and playing at that age!

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by lumpuckeroo

I see that "vanity" handicap with my dad also, and he turn's 80 this year.  But his handicap is based on a 9 hole course that is just under 3000 yards and plays much shorter.  It is an old course that use to have sand greens, now grass, and the greens are all about the same small size, round, with few breaks.  Any place on the green is a makeable putt as you won't have more than 20 feet to putt.  He has played over 6000 rounds on that course in the past 20 years, so he knows every inch of the greens.  When he plays other courses he struggles with the putting because he can't read a green, of course he hasn't had to for 20 years.

Also the fairways baked hard like concrete in the summer time so he gets a lot of extra distance, on the 9th hole there is a spot about 30 yards short of the green that if you hit the ball it will bounce forward and roll on the green.  So he will hit a 5 iron from 180 yards, hit "the spot" and end up on the green and he thinks he can hit a 5 iron 180 yards.  He regularly shots below his age at his course, but when he plays on a regular course with me he always struggles, even thought the course we play is right at 6000 yards.

He still plays a good game for being 80, and I hope I'm still alive and playing at that age!

I played / worked with a guy who would relive his good shots. One day his mind went and he somehow convinced himself he'd made all those great shots in the same round. We played a par 3 once and he pulls out a 3-iron. It was a pretty short hole - he could reach it easily with a 7. I suggested a 7-iron. He pulls the 5 as compromise. Skull / tops the heck out of it and it hops and bounces to about 20 yards short of the green. He gives me a smug look and says, "told you I needed a 3-iron". Oh brother.

Speaking of my brother. we have a couple friends who refuse to play by the rules (how many mulligans do we get par 9?) yet want to keep score and rehash the round over a beer. It's gross.

[behing19]

Most players actually sandbag, but this does happen too.  Some golfers just can't handle having a high handicap, but if you can't play to a 20, then you are not a 20.  Honesty is a big part of golf and maybe it's time you confront your friend about this since friends are supposed to be honest with each other.  Maybe then he will realize allowing his handicap to always be true will make a huge difference in how he views the game.  It sounds like his expectations are at a 20 handicap and he rarely reaches them, which is a dangerous way to play golf.

[Chief Broom]

Cheating doesn't bother me, and cheating is what's being discussed in this thread.  I play in a league and we play a stableford format.  The majority of the guys in the league cheat.  Some cheat pretty bad.  In fact the league allows a mulligan off the first tee, a floating mulligan off the tee, and you get to roll the ball one club length no closer to the hole.  So that's all cheating too.  Now I play the ball down and if it's a score I post on GHIN I won't use the mulligans.  But when I play in this league, even though I don't cheat like everyone else, I'm not at any disadvantage when it comes to potentially being in the money because everyone's handicap is based upon how they play.  If cheating causes a guy to shoot a lower score his handicap reflects that, and my handicap reflects how I play and when said handicaps are applied to the scores it all evens out.

Golf is hard and some guys need as much relief as possible so that they can enjoy the game.  Whenever I get paired up with someone by the starter I tell them straight up to play their own game and enjoy them self.  I played recently with a buddy and his father-in-law.  The FIL is actually a pretty good golfer, but he's had some health issues this past year and he hadn't touched a club in 6 months.  He was playing pretty well, but on one tee he hit a horrible shot that went about 10'.  I immediately told him to tee another one up and not worry about it.  He did, we all knew he was shaking a lot of rust off his game, and above all else we were out there to have fun.  Grant you if some guy takes mulligans and do overs throughout his round and when it's over wants to make a big deal out of the "number" he shot I'll probably say something about how shooting that low number is a lot harder when you count every stroke, but honestly it's not a big deal to me.  I do have to admit though that all of my regular golf buddies play the ball down and while if someone is having a bad day it's not unheard of for them to trash their scorecard and just play in for fun we take the game pretty serious for the same reasons everyone else in this thread does.  As was said when you play the game by the rules that makes the occasional good round all the more satisfying.

[Zeph]

The way the handicap system works here, many players got a lower handicap than they play to. They got some good rounds, but the anti handicap is often a lot higher. You can play one good round and bump down a lot on the handicap. I went from 18 to 12 a couple of years ago and has since had some trouble stabilizing my game on that handicap. It is coming together now, so I'm not too far away at this point, but last year I was definitely not playing to 12 most of the time. Getting back up takes forever and one decent round quickly eliminates the bad ones. I don't mind though. I play in tournaments for fun and don't care a lot about winning. I'd rather have a little vanity handicap that makes me work on playing to my handicap than being OK with a mediocre round.

[vanpooten]

Originally Posted by Zeph

The way the handicap system works here, many players got a lower handicap than they play to. They got some good rounds, but the anti handicap is often a lot higher. You can play one good round and bump down a lot on the handicap.

I went from 18 to 12 a couple of years ago and has since had some trouble stabilizing my game on that handicap. It is coming together now, so I'm not too far away at this point, but last year I was definitely not playing to 12 most of the time. Getting back up takes forever and one decent round quickly eliminates the bad ones.

I don't mind though. I play in tournaments for fun and don't care a lot about winning. I'd rather have a little vanity handicap that makes me work on playing to my handicap than being OK with a mediocre round.

Your handicap is a measure of your potential. I don't remember the percentage I read but you will only play to you handicap let's say 10% of the time. My handicap is hovering around 15, but I usually shoot 90-95, with a handful of scores lower than that this year. It is not an average of all your scores. So most of the time you will not play to your handicap.

One source: http://golf.about.com/cs/golfterms/g/bldef_handicap.htm

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by vanpooten

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeph

The way the handicap system works here, many players got a lower handicap than they play to. They got some good rounds, but the anti handicap is often a lot higher. You can play one good round and bump down a lot on the handicap.

I went from 18 to 12 a couple of years ago and has since had some trouble stabilizing my game on that handicap. It is coming together now, so I'm not too far away at this point, but last year I was definitely not playing to 12 most of the time. Getting back up takes forever and one decent round quickly eliminates the bad ones.

I don't mind though. I play in tournaments for fun and don't care a lot about winning. I'd rather have a little vanity handicap that makes me work on playing to my handicap than being OK with a mediocre round.

Your handicap is a measure of your potential. I don't remember the percentage I read but you will only play to you handicap let's say 10% of the time. My handicap is hovering around 15, but I usually shoot 90-95, with a handful of scores lower than that this year. It is not an average of all your scores. So most of the time you will not play to your handicap.

One source: http://golf.about.com/cs/golfterms/g/bldef_handicap.htm

I think it's closer to ~ 25%, but there's there are probably some players who shoot near their index every time and other players who rarely do, with most rounds either well below or well above their calculated index. I'm sure there are quite a few "experienced" players who only shoot below their index when it counts though. Some at my course even have the gall to brag about it.

[Zeph]

I know, but it depends largely on the system which are used to determine the handicap. If you use the 10 best of the last 20 rounds, the handicap is the average score of those 10 rounds, with a small factor which makes it a bit lower. This is probably the best system out there. Over here you can play one good round at handicap 25 and suddenly jump down to handicap 20 and not being able to shoot to your handicap the rest of the year. To get back up to 25 you have to play 30 rounds with less than 32 stableford points or something like that.

[Bastid]

The idea of reverse sandbagging doesn't really hurt anyone unless you're playing in a handicapped tournament with that person. Golf is a game of honesty and integrity--if someone wants to act like they shot better it really doesn't matter to me. If they "think" they shot a 75 when it was actually closer to 80, I guess that is their right. It seems silly though, no one cares that you aren't a professional golfer. How can you take pride in improving if you never really know how you actually play?

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by Bastid

The idea of reverse sandbagging doesn't really hurt anyone unless you're playing in a handicapped tournament with that person. Golf is a game of honesty and integrity--if someone wants to act like they shot better it really doesn't matter to me. If they "think" they shot a 75 when it was actually closer to 80, I guess that is their right. It seems silly though, no one cares that you aren't a professional golfer. How can you take pride in improving if you never really know how you actually play?

This was my original points as well.  No pride or satisfaction in improving when your HDCP is a lie.

Part of what bothers me is that for somebody so obsessed with golf and "in love" with golf, he sure seems like he never has much fun out there playing.  He never lives up to the way too high expectations he's always set for himself and I can't help but wonder how much of that is because he thinks he's a 20.  (When he is more realistically a 27 or 28)

I'll never stop playing with him, but boy would it be nice to play once where he is truly enjoying himself.

[newtogolf]

I think it has to do with most people are competitive and have difficulty admitting they aren't as good as they'd like to be.  Fish tend to get larger in stories than in real life and golf scores and handicaps tend to get lower.

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

This was my original points as well.  No pride or satisfaction in improving when your HDCP is a lie.

Part of what bothers me is that for somebody so obsessed with golf and "in love" with golf, he sure seems like he never has much fun out there playing.  He never lives up to the way too high expectations he's always set for himself and I can't help but wonder how much of that is because he thinks he's a 20.  (When he is more realistically a 27 or 28)

I'll never stop playing with him, but boy would it be nice to play once where he is truly enjoying himself.

[rustyredcab]

There are some other explanations for those of us who seem to never live up to our handicaps when we are out with friends.

1. Top ten scores are always from home course. I dropped a lot of handicap over the last few years. My cousin plays lots of excellent course and bellows to more than one club. Whenever I play with him, I score above my handicap. He asked, "How many of your handicap scores are from your home course?" I went back and found the I rarely had a top ten score from any course other than mine. I have learned how to score at home and my handicap does not travel. My father makes ever putt on his home course. He is a below average putter everywhere else. If we play somewhere other than my home course, I'm looking like a vanity capper.

2. Don't play tournaments very often. Play a lot of match play partner golf. Two-foot putts that do not change the outcome of the hole are conceded. Sometimes three foot putts. I would make almost ever one of them. But, under pressure, I might miss one ever round or two. That's half a stroke. Put me in a tournament and I am a vanity capper.

3. ESC limits blow up holes. Once you get under a 10 handicap on your home course from your regular tees, it is easier to keep it there with a few good holes each round. That brutal par three over the water, where a 4 is a good score, suddenly there are no sixes ever. Look at my gross score and I am a vanity capper.

4. Play to win the game. Some rounds are played for score and some are played for the game. When I play alone, I just play for total score. When I play a game with buddies, I play to win the game. Since our games are match-play, total score is less important than score on any given hole for the situation. So, if I'm giving a stroke on a short par 4 and my opponent rips his drive, I may take the high risk and high return shot and go for the green. A good drive and I might get the birdie I need to tie the hole. Miss the drive and I bring double into play on a hole that I should never double. I play my best to win the game. Not necessarily to have the lowest score. As you hand me my winnings, my total score  suggests a lucky vanity capper.