Winter Handicaps

[tigerwoo]

Just wondering how everyone is impacted by winter conditions. Up here where I live (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) we do have year round golf available to us as the weather is milder here than any other Canadian city (winter average temps are above freezing). But it's no Arizona desert.

Winter conditions make the courses we play up here much longer. The courses I tend to play are between 6500 and 7000 yards and in the summer time that is not an issue. However, when playing in soggy and colder conditions these course yardages can make it quite difficult as everything you hit is alot shorter due to less carry and no roll. For instance, I average about 285 yards off the tee in the summer and in the winter I usually see about 30-40 yards less off the tee. So a 400 yard par 4 in the summer which would normally be a driver, PW (assuming two good shots) becomes driver, 7 or 6 iron in the winter. The course ratings/slopes don't change so this has impact the handicap even though theoretically you can be playing just as well as in the summer time?

So my question is, how do you take this into account when you fly south during the winter and play golf in a sunnier/warmer climate and have to report your handicap index for a tournament? I don't want to look like I am sandbagging anyone whatsoever. But I have come across this situation more than once.

[Fourputt]

All I can do is use my season ending handicap as a valid measure through the winter. Here in Colorado, even though we still play a lot of golf in the winter, we can't return scores for handicap between the end of October and the first of March, so the final revision on November 2 will be my handicap for the duration. I don't know if I can even return a score played in the south where they don't have an off season... never tried it. But even if I could turn one in, my handicap won't be revised again until March.

I just don't worry about it all that much. It is what it is, and that's what it's going to be for the winter...