Tournament Scores and Handicaps: Poll

[Lihu]

I voted no because this way you end up in the correct flight.

[NJpatbee]

I vote no.  The use of the term "casual round" should not be confused with what I would call a "practice round" where the rules are not always adhered to and multiple shots are taken for the sake of working on different parts of your game or getting a novice (like my grandson) some on the course play.  About 10% of my rounds are practice rounds and the score is meaningless.  However, about 90% of my rounds are casual since I rarely play in a tournament, but I do play by strict USGA rules when entering a score for my handicap.  I agree with a few others that some goflers only play strictly by the rules in a tournament and therefore are a few strokes higher, especially due to rules such as stroke and distance penalties.

I do play some matches when there is something on the line and admit to getting keyed up at times, but I am not certain if this helps or hurts my game - bear in mind I am an 18 HCP and can shoot an 86 or a 106 in any type of round, but I have seen no correlation between scores for matches or casual rounds played by the rules.

[Dave2512]

I know one of the courses that Dave has mentioned playing before is Heritage at Westmoor. That course has been used for US Open sectional qualifying, and I completely believe the 82's if it was at that course. That course, from the tips, measures over 7500 yards and they pushed it to 8000 yards during last year's sectional qualifying. I've played it in a tournament where they set it up at 7600 yards and after coming away with scores of 82 and 84 I considered myself to be fairly lucky (I had a handicap of 5 at the time). That course is a beast that leaves very few birdie opportunities and is a rare course in that its par fives play no easier than the rest (hole 13 is 615 yards, straight uphill).

Yeah Heritage is brutal period but the club I mention is The Ranch CC. Some of the funkiest greens I've ever seen are there and they roll PGA tour fast for tournaments. But they do it because they can, less than 500 members, the championship might have 50-60 men participating and they aren't worried about closing the course down for the day like a public course would be. I usually don't play to my handicap there but it's worse set up for tournaments. About 2 strokes a side worse for me. I played the Sun before the sectional event held Mon-Tue in Aug and they had the tees out on boxes I had never seen before.