USGA Handicap

[Abu3baid]

Prevention of handicap manipulation requires a couple of things.  It takes active oversight by a handicap committee, and it requires regular participation by a player in verifiable rounds played.  In the US that usually means that he plays in regular competitions in which the handicap committee can review and manage the returned scores.   My men's club had one member who turned his 20 qualifying rounds over on a monthly basis by constant casual play, and that play was not at our tournament course.  He returned cards from all over the state, but never from our home course, so nobody could really see what he was doing, or if he was really even playing all of those rounds.  This way he briefly got away with sandbagging a few tournaments.  With 3 weeks to a month between tournaments played, he was able to erase virtually all of his low 80's and mid to high 70's tournament scores to keep his handicap at 13, yet he won 3 straight flighted competitions by 4-5 strokes per round.  He was so blatant about it that it was obvious to everyone what he was doing, and he didn't even care when he was called a sandbagger to his face.  The committee ultimately caught up with him, adjusted his handicap to only include tournament scores, and he got pissed and dropped out of the club. Had this player played his casual golf on the home course, he'd have been observed at least some of the time, and he'd likely have been caught even sooner.  I just feel sorry for the next victim he selected.  He had a personality that wasn't going to change.  If he found a club that was not as well policed as ours was, he could have gotten away with it for a long time - or until someone killed him over it.

Manipulating the handicap seems pretty easy even if he played at the home course. He could have just made sure that he duffed 5 chips and pushed 3 putts.. The idea of only counting tournament scores works to a certain degree even though he could throw 3 tournaments and win one ect.

[Fourputt]

Manipulating the handicap seems pretty easy even if he played at the home course. He could have just made sure that he duffed 5 chips and pushed 3 putts.. The idea of only counting tournament scores works to a certain degree even though he could throw 3 tournaments and win one ect.

Committee handicap management is done in part by watching for unnatural appearing trends.  It's much harder to disguise manipulation when tournament scores are witnessed and attested to by fellow competitors, and your scoring history is regularly reviewed by the committee.

[turtleback]

Could be. At the end of the day he actually was let go when new management took over last year maybe he just wanted to control too much. I wasn't going to over think it just sign the card and I will go ahead and enter it into the system. Either way I wish they would have a way to govern sandbagging and vanity capping more with something like this. Anyone can enter in any score.. I hate vanity capping more than anything in the world I think.  I doubt this course even had a committee it was a public course with very few actual members. I mean to me, it wasn't worth 30 minutes of him proving it to me vs 20 seconds of him signing it and me entering.

I think the USGA would want someone to verify that they have played with the person or know what the person is capable of shooting. If someone who is certified signs off on it then it is more believable than anyone who wants to vanity cap to play a nice course then make up some story.

You are talking about the way you would like it to be  I am talking about the way it is.  And the pro has no business making up his own rules no matter how well intentioned.

If the entity issuing the handicap does not have a handicap committee then that is just another way they are out of compliance with the USGA rules.  Pros do not get to just run their own little fiefdom and make up their own rules.

I understand your dislike of vanity cappers but a non-uniform system where every club makes up its own "local rules" on handicap issues would be far more susceptible to abuse than a uniform system administered by the USGA.  No system is ever going to be perfect but allowing clubs to "roll their own" is not the answer.

[GHIN0011458]

You are talking about the way you would like it to be  I am talking about the way it is.  And the pro has no business making up his own rules no matter how well intentioned.

If the entity issuing the handicap does not have a handicap committee then that is just another way they are out of compliance with the USGA rules.  Pros do not get to just run their own little fiefdom and make up their own rules.

I understand your dislike of vanity cappers but a non-uniform system where every club makes up its own "local rules" on handicap issues would be far more susceptible to abuse than a uniform system administered by the USGA.  No system is ever going to be perfect but allowing clubs to "roll their own" is not the answer

That hey may not. But he isn't there anymore and I hope that you can sleep better knowing that is one less pro making up his own rules. I actually don't know of any public courses around here with a committee to be honest. Maybe they are all out of compliance. Either way it comes down to letting people post as much as they want any score that they want so who cares if they are in compliance? At the end of the day it is a revenue generator for the USGA so how much do you think they come down on clubs or audit clubs on these things? Never?

[turtleback]

That hey may not. But he isn't there anymore and I hope that you can sleep better knowing that is one less pro making up his own rules. I actually don't know of any public courses around here with a committee to be honest. Maybe they are all out of compliance. Either way it comes down to letting people post as much as they want any score that they want so who cares if they are in compliance? At the end of the day it is a revenue generator for the USGA so how much do you think they come down on clubs or audit clubs on these things? Never?

I really do not understand why you are upset at me.  There are  a lot of rules about a lot of things in life I do not like but why would I get upset at the guy who tells me what the rules are, when he didn't even make them up?

Courses do not issue handicaps, clubs do.  And anyone who has an official USGA handicap has to belong to some kind of club and that club has to have a handicap committee.  I'm not making this stuff up.  There is a handicap manual and it spells out the rules for official handicaps.

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

No one forces you to have a USGA handicap just as no one forces anyone to play by the rules, so do what you want.  But I suspect that the amount of sandbagging and vanity capping is no different now than when other rules applied.

[GHIN0011458]

I really do not understand why you are upset at me.  There are  a lot of rules about a lot of things in life I do not like but why would I get upset at the guy who tells me what the rules are, when he didn't even make them up?

Courses do not issue handicaps, clubs do.  And anyone who has an official USGA handicap has to belong to some kind of club and that club has to have a handicap committee.  I'm not making this stuff up.  There is a handicap manual and it spells out the rules for official handicaps.

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

No one forces you to have a USGA handicap just as no one forces anyone to play by the rules, so do what you want.  But I suspect that the amount of sandbagging and vanity capping is no different now than when other rules applied.

I am not upset at all lol. I am telling you that these "Clubs" are in reality public courses with very few members but carry a GHIN handicapping system. Just because a "Club" is in their name doesn't mean they are a club because I can tell you right now that ANYONE can walk in and get a GHIN at most places around St. Louis. I had a handicap at my buddies course that I never even played at so I could play in the local metro cup with his team. Obviously this is something close to your heart considering you went through a class for it. For me, I don't care that much to come down on "clubs" that are not in compliance. I can tell you this and I have the conversations - 3/5 club pros that I don't know don't have an official committee at their courses.

[Fourputt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by turtleback

You are talking about the way you would like it to be  I am talking about the way it is.  And the pro has no business making up his own rules no matter how well intentioned.

If the entity issuing the handicap does not have a handicap committee then that is just another way they are out of compliance with the USGA rules.  Pros do not get to just run their own little fiefdom and make up their own rules.

I understand your dislike of vanity cappers but a non-uniform system where every club makes up its own "local rules" on handicap issues would be far more susceptible to abuse than a uniform system administered by the USGA.  No system is ever going to be perfect but allowing clubs to "roll their own" is not the answer

That hey may not. But he isn't there anymore and I hope that you can sleep better knowing that is one less pro making up his own rules. I actually don't know of any public courses around here with a committee to be honest. Maybe they are all out of compliance. Either way it comes down to letting people post as much as they want any score that they want so who cares if they are in compliance? At the end of the day it is a revenue generator for the USGA so how much do you think they come down on clubs or audit clubs on these things? Never?

I don't think anyone in his right mind would expect a public course to have a "committee".  There is no good reason for it, since they don't have a fixed clientele.  However, any club that plays there and does handicap maintenance should do their own policing.

The club I was in played all of their tournaments at the same public course, but was not actually associated with them beyond that.  The pros were used occasionally as a resource, and we obviously worked closely with them when we set up each season's tournament schedule, but they didn't have anything to do with the operation of the club.  I know that when we had any sort of a handicap problem, we consulted the Colorado Golf Association (our tournament club was a member club of the CGA, not of the course) before we took any action.  That way we were acting in accordance with their guidelines when we took action against someone who we suspected of abusing the system.  Aside from that we did our own handicap management.

[Pretzel]

I know the "club" I am associated with is the Colorado Junior Golf Association. It could be that a lot of public courses are part of the state's golf association and issue their handicaps in a manner appropriate to that.

[GHIN0011458]

I know the "club" I am associated with is the Colorado Junior Golf Association. It could be that a lot of public courses are part of the state's golf association and issue their handicaps in a manner appropriate to that.

I see what you are saying- but the problem is that one group to oversee 30-40 courses and every handicap inside of those would be very hard to do IMO.

[Fourputt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pretzel

I know the "club" I am associated with is the Colorado Junior Golf Association. It could be that a lot of public courses are part of the state's golf association and issue their handicaps in a manner appropriate to that.

I see what you are saying- but the problem is that one group to oversee 30-40 courses and every handicap inside of those would be very hard to do IMO.

One reason why the USGA handicap system is supposed to be composed of member "clubs", whether they play private or public courses, is because the USGA expects those clubs to do their own handicap management, with assistance from the state or regional association only when a question comes up.  Where that breaks down is when a club is too lazy to bother with oversight, or when the so-called "club" is nothing more than a loosely associated bunch of golfers who joined through some retail outfit or the like and don't actually play together or even know each other.  That isn't the sort of club that the USGA envisioned when they wrote the manual, and the requirements in the manual don't work well when the recommended procedures aren't followed.

[BuckeyeNut]

Question: Do you have to be a member of a golf club in order to have a USGA handicap?

This thread has gone waaaaaaaaay off topic!

NO!!    All you need to do is pay a small fee for the service.   You can go to any public course to sign up for the service, or do this online!!    You will need to choose a course to represent your home course and this can be any area course near you.  Scores can then be posted online....no need to go to any specific course to do this.