Vanity Capping Is Worse Than Sandbagging

[golfbarefoot]

If you are a member of a club, wouldnt it be difficult to get away with either? Everyone at my club knows each other's game, well... and our members hcp is vital to any event. I met a guy last night at my son's basketball practice, he said, "Steve (my sons coach) said you golf together and you play scratch, that's great, but did you know I missed my PGA Tour card by one stroke?" He really said that... I didn't know what to say... When he asked how far I drive the ball, I told him 265, and he laughed and said "that's short, how do you score low 70's like that?" and of course went on to say he hasn't played in over 7 years now he said, after I mentioned we should tee it up sometime... My point is the guy didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But I didn't embarrass him or even say a word, I just smiled. Vanity people can't hide it, they're harmless and it's evident the moment they tee it up.. A sandbagger on the other hand.. Is a cheater. Someone that gets 14 strokes and shoots 74...is cheating to win something. They won't last long at a club.

[Lihu]

If you are a member of a club, wouldn't it be difficult to get away with either? Everyone at my club knows each others game, well... and our members hcp is vital to any event.

I met a guy last night at my son's basketball practice, he said, "Steve (my sons coach) said you golf together and you play scratch, that's great, but did you know I missed my PGA Tour card by one stroke?" He really said that... I didn't know what to say... When he asked how far I drive the ball, I told him 265, and he laughed and said "that's short, how do you score low 70's like that?" and of course went on to say he hasn't played in over 7 years now he said, after I mentioned we should tee it up sometime...

My point is the guy didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But I didn't embarrass him or even say a word, I just smiled. Vanity people can't hide it, they're harmless and it's evident the moment they tee it up..

A sandbagger on the other hand.. Is a cheater. Someone that gets 14 strokes and shoots 74...is cheating to win something. They won't last long at a club.

Pretty easy to spot within one round.

Someone is capable of shooting 74 and is claiming to be a bogey golfer is pretty easy to spot too.

[ay33660]

If you are a member of a club, wouldnt it be difficult to get away with either? Everyone at my club knows each other's game, well... and our members hcp is vital to any event.

I have been a member at a private club for 16 years.

In general you tend to know the games of the people that play regularly but we have over 460 full play members and another 400 limited or social members.

I think that playing consistently within a set handicap is more evident when the player has a lower handicap.

Using myself as an example. I looked over my last 20 games and my high was 95 and my low was a 78. This is all on the same course.

I play to a 11.1 index which is a 13 off my regular set of tees.

The spread between those 20 scores is 16 strokes.

Unless I played with my regular group that know my games has a great amount of variety - when I shot my 95 the other members of the group would have called me a vanity capper and when I shot my 78 I was a sandbagger.

In my last 10 games however my highest score was a 89 and my lowest was a 79 and I dropped from a 13.4 to my current 11.1 index in that time frame.

Another interesting fact my "tournament" (based solely on my 2014 official tournament scores) index is 17.2. So maybe I am a vanity capper.

[vangator]

We have a guy in our league that has a 36 handicap. He always wins the handicap tourneys because he always shoots a little too good. He doesn't shoot in the 80's or anything, but maybe in the 90's. He hit's lots of sucky shots even during good rounds, but more good shots than normal. If he has enough rounds, I've mentioned he should be rerated using his tourney rounds. We had a similar sandbagging incident in bowling several years back. I averaged 225 when entering tournaments. This guy was a better bowler than me, but entered the tournaments with a 156 average. During the tournaments, he'd bowl 700's etc. They finally caught on to him, but he got a lot of money before they blackballed him. Same issue, different sport.

[turtleback]

Another situation is the guy who putts everything out, even the two and three foot putts. The golf purist will say that this is the proper way to play the game. However, a proponent of fast play will concede the 2 and 3 foot putts with the goal of playing quickly.

The pace of play thing is just an excuse, IMO.  If a serious golfer is giving or accepting 3 footers in anything other than a match play situation then it turns out they aren't that serious after all.  And there is probably a decent chance that they are not a good short putter.

Tough to say unless you play with someone enough to know that much about their golf. The spread of scores in my last 20 is something like 12 strokes best to worst.

Yup.  That is why claims of being able to tell if some is really a, say, 7, in a couple of shots or after one round are not credible to me.

I think the 106 was not counted because in the calculation of your handicap only the top 10 of 20 scores is used.

So there is another factor that creates "vanity" cappers out of all of us.

Calling things like ESC and the basic handicap formula (best 10 of last 20) instruments of vanity caps only serves to confuse the issue, because no one means that when they say vanity cap.  It only fosters the common misunderstanding of handicap as some kind of average, rather than a measure of potential, IMO.  Not everything that lowers your index is evidence of vanity capping.

I play to a 11.1 index which is a 13 off my regular set of tees.

The spread between those 20 scores is 16 strokes.

Unless I played with my regular group that know my games has a great amount of variety - when I shot my 95 the other members of the group would have called me a vanity capper and when I shot my 78 I was a sandbagger.

In my last 10 games however my highest score was a 89 and my lowest was a 79 and I dropped from a 13.4 to my current 11.1 index in that time frame.

Another interesting fact my "tournament" (based solely on my 2014 official tournament scores) index is 17.2. So maybe I am a vanity capper.

If you are trying your best, you are playing by the rules, and you are posting all of your eligible scores without any attempt at manipulation then you are not a vanity capper.

On a side note:

Your example shows yet again what nonsense it is to try to estimate or validate someone's handicap after a very limited exposure of a few holes or one round.  It is also why a handicap committee generally has to see a pattern of abuse of some kind to make an adjustment.  That might be a failure to post eligible scores.  Section 8-4 of the Handicap Manual provides the details. But having been on a handicap committee and been a handicap chairman, I cannot imagine adjusting a player's index based on such limited data.

We have a guy in our league that has a 36 handicap. He always wins the handicap tourneys because he always shoots a little too good. He doesn't shoot in the 80's or anything, but maybe in the 90's. He hit's lots of sucky shots even during good rounds, but more good shots than normal. If he has enough rounds, I've mentioned he should be rerated using his tourney rounds.

We had a similar sandbagging incident in bowling several years back. I averaged 225 when entering tournaments. This guy was a better bowler than me, but entered the tournaments with a 156 average. During the tournaments, he'd bowl 700's etc. They finally caught on to him, but he got a lot of money before they blackballed him. Same issue, different sport.

On the first point, if the tournament rounds are properly entered as tournament rounds and the club uses GHIN (I assume the same would be true for other hcap services) then the adjustment for tournament rounds is done automatically as it is a mechanical process and does not involve any discretion on the part of the handicap committee.  There still might be grounds to make an adjustment other than that automatic one, but it would not take many scores in the 90s.  A score in the 90s should be a differential under 30, which would be a six stroke difference from his index.  2 such scores would have required a reduction of 4.1 in his index. The whole thing is spelled out in great detail in section 10-3 of the USGA Handicap Manual.

http://www.usga.org/Rule-Books/Handicap-System-Manual/Handicap-Manual/

[ay33660]

If you are trying your best, you are playing by the rules, and you are posting all of your eligible scores without any attempt at manipulation then you are not a vanity capper.

Yes, Yes and Yes.

I am fortunate in that I have a regular stroke play game with one of the members in my group. He plays to a 9 handicap. We don't play for a lot of money usually just lunch after the round.

We have a habit of keeping each other's score and we only take gimmes that are very close and not on a slope.

[phan52]

I was the handicap chairman for a number of years and I knew who the sandbaggers were and who the vanity handicappers were as well. I was much more concerned with the sandbaggers.

I once attended a USGA handicap seminar and somebody raised the question of what to do about vanity handicappers. The guy running the seminar said to play them as often as possible, particularly if they play for money, and don't get them as a partner. The only people they are hurting are themselves.

[Lefty-Golfer]

The pace of play thing is just an excuse, IMO.  If a serious golfer is giving or accepting 3 footers in anything other than a match play situation then it turns out they aren't that serious after all.  And there is probably a decent chance that they are not a good short putter.

I have been a member at my club for 9 yrs and have played at more other clubs then i can recall and I have never seen a game outside of a club tournament that isn't match play...if you don't give a 3 footer or 2 somewhere you are hurting yourself for a point towards the end of the match when he needs it....and hasn't hit one.

but yea don't be gimmie snob is an important lesson to learn.

[Dave2512]

Every club/league I am familiar with only has one match play tournament a year.

[Lihu]

Every club/league I am familiar with only has one match play tournament a year.

The three clubs I am looking at joining don't have that many either. The "money" tournaments are usually individual handicap or no handicap flights.

[rkim291968]

Do you know the worst of vanity cappers?  It's the ones who try to make up their vanity HI by cheating when tournament time comes around.   I ran into one in match play and managed to beat him, cheating and all.  In the next round, I lost to a suspected sand bagger (who eventually won the tournament).

[Golfingdad]

Do you know the worst of vanity cappers?  It's the ones who try to make up their vanity HI by cheating when tournament time comes around.   I ran into one in match play and managed to beat him, cheating and all.  In the next round, I lost to a suspected sand bagger (who eventually won the tournament).

That's not a vanity-capper, that's a plain old cheater!

[vangator]

I was the handicap chairman for a number of years and I knew who the sandbaggers were and who the vanity handicappers were as well. I was much more concerned with the sandbaggers. I once attended a USGA handicap seminar and somebody raised the question of what to do about vanity handicappers. The guy running the seminar said to play them as often as possible, particularly if they play for money, and don't get them as a partner. The only people they are hurting are themselves.

+1 exactly...

[Lihu]

Do you know the worst of vanity cappers?  It's the ones who try to make up their vanity HI by cheating when tournament time comes around.   I ran into one in match play and managed to beat him, cheating and all.  In the next round, I lost to a suspected sand bagger (who eventually won the tournament).

They only get to do that once, then people like you report them.

[Oz Max]

In France, you had to sign your partner's scorecard for your score to be registered. If a cheater had a signed scorecard, not much could be done. I'm guessing you have the same thing in the US no? people in your three or foursome become your scorer, don't they?

[vangator]

I believe once the hole is over, their score is what it is. You have to call them on it at the time. At the end of the round, you agree with their math or don't. If you called them out for a 7 on hole 3 and they wrote a 4, then you don't sign. At the end of the round, I don't think you can say they had a 7 on hole 3 when you didn't protest it at the time. At least that's how I play it. The rules may say something entirely different. I think PGA tournaments that allow viewers to call in suspected rules violations is BS. The guys that are not leading don't have the cameras on them, so they don't get the same scrutiny. Old Tom Morris never had a TV viewer call out one of his shots.

[ghalfaire]

If you are a member of a club, wouldnt it be difficult to get away with either? Everyone at my club knows each other's game, well... and our members hcp is vital to any event.

My point is the guy didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But I didn't embarrass him or even say a word, I just smiled. Vanity people can't hide it, they're harmless and it's evident the moment they tee it up..

A sandbagger on the other hand.. Is a cheater. Someone that gets 14 strokes and shoots 74...is cheating to win something. They won't last long at a club.

To the first point, yes, either a vanity or sandbagger is difficult to get away with as a club member.  Of course if you're a brand new member you might get away with it for a round or so.  But after a round or two it usually is obvious.

To the second point a vanity handicap isn't always harmless albeit not as damaging as sandbaggers.

To the last point, at our club there is a handicap committee that oversees this.  Sometimes they "adjust" a player's handicap for all club competitive activities (e.g. a Special Handicap for any tournament activity).

[Dave2512]

In my experience easy to get away with either if you don't play in club tournaments. I know several lie fluffer, mulligan types that belong to private clubs that don't do anything but golf with friends. They aren't on the handicap committees radar.