Feeling useless on the course

[Moppy]

I will be honest here, I have never understood why anybody would want to play in a handicap league, or why they would care if they won or not. I can see giving a friend whose game you know a couple of strokes to make a fair bet, but there are so many ways that handicaps can be manipulated, what's the point?

[Dave2512]

I joined a league to meet people. I did but most of them were douches.

[Grumpter]

I will be honest here, I have never understood why anybody would want to play in a handicap league, or why they would care if they won or not. I can see giving a friend whose game you know a couple of strokes to make a fair bet, but there are so many ways that handicaps can be manipulated, what's the point?

For me it was just wanting to be able to play some golf during the weeknights, for a reasonable price, without having to burn a half vacation/personal day from work. By joining 2 leagues I increased the number of round I played this year by about 20 full rounds (of 18 holes). That is a significant increase for me which makes me happier (less grumpy). I also got to play with a good friend who only had time to play 9 holes during most given weeks and made a new friend with my golf partner in my other league. The side benefit was the additional competition in many of the matches. Having to make a shot to win/tie a hole is different than just wanting to make a par on any given hole during a casual round.

I could play some courses on the weeknights but it meant close to a 3 hour round for 9 holes which I grew tired of. I could join a private club but the math on that showed the price to be outrageously expensive.

The point to me would be to keep refining the league play to be the most fair that it can be. I don't particularly care if I win the overall thing but definitely want to try to win every single match. dave s outlined how the league he is in modified things to make them more fair for the majority. For next year I am looking into a league that is supposedly all low handicappers which would seem to be less likely to have situations where a player could shoot a large negative net number.

At the end of the day I liked the league experience (besides the 2 times that I had no chance of being competitive). I Met a lot of nice people and only a handful off people I didn't care for. For the most part the people in the leagues have been fun to play/socialize with.