World Handicap System Now Out (2020)

[iacas]

27 minutes ago, gbogey said:

Somehow I missed this but I thought the PCC adjustment was a one way adjustment that can help but not hurt.  Today I saw that Sunday was my first PCC adjustment and it was negative, meaning it made my score higher.  Funny but the course didn't seem particularly easy that day.  It was actually windier than usual although I would say the fairways were firm enough for the ball to run.  Makes me wonder if a fluke PCC is possible.

-1, 1, 2, or 3.

And your score wasn’t higher. Your differential was.

[bkuehn1952]

I am going to need to reorient myself as far as score posting.  I was used to having a day or two to post since handicaps were calculated twice a month.  Now, with the PCC and daily calculation, it is important to post the same day.  I am sure my 88 yesterday at Leslie Park would have contributed to any PCC adjustment but I did not get around to posting until this morning.  It will be interesting to see if enough people who played yesterday posted their score on 5/1 to create a PCC.

[DaveP043]

6 minutes ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I am going to need to reorient myself as far as score posting.  I was used to having a day or two to post since handicaps were calculated twice a month.  Now, with the PCC and daily calculation, it is important to post the same day.  I am sure my 88 yesterday at Leslie Park would have contributed to any PCC adjustment but I did not get around to posting until this morning.  It will be interesting to see if enough people who played yesterday posted their score on 5/1 to create a PCC.

You'll be able to check as soon as your handicap updates tomorrow and see, as long as you posted the score for the correct date.  For many of you, this is the first round in a long time, right?  That could also contribute to higher scores, with a greater likelihood of a PCC being applied. 

[iacas]

Brian, you could check now, if you know of anyone else who played that course that day and posted.

PCCs won't be applied retroactively, of course. I haven't checked yet to see what happens if there's a +2 for example and you post the day later. Does the +2 show in your column but isn't applied or is your PCC column simply left blank?

[RetiredOldMan]

Good Morning Fellow Golfers,

A couple of items:

1. My "STATS" screen on my IPhone is just Grey Shaded, not in color. Any ideas on how to change this?

2. I am new to understanding my GHIN. Any ideas or articles I can look at to help me understand my GHIN better?

3. And last, how do you Golfers handle the negatives from other Golfer's who say they "don't need to keep a handicap, I'll never play in a tournament that requires it, and etc...too much time to keep scores, and on and on and on." I finally just keep it to myself. 

    Seems like a lot of people can tell me their handicap from years ago but don't keep track of it now. 

 

As you can see, I am 73 years old and play regularly with a younger golfer friend (61 years old) I generally shoot from the white Men's tees and have difficulty reaching the green in regulation. Would changing to the Senior tees lower my handicap? 

 

Thanks for your answers and advice, 

Retired Old Man 

[DaveP043]

8 hours ago, iacas said:

Brian, you could check now, if you know of anyone else who played that course that day and posted.

PCCs won't be applied retroactively, of course. I haven't checked yet to see what happens if there's a +2 for example and you post the day later. Does the +2 show in your column but isn't applied or is your PCC column simply left blank?

As I understand it, the PCC will apply to all scores posted for the day, no matter when the scores were actually posted.  The scores used to calculate the PCC are only the ones posted on the day of play, with some other limitations, and the PCC will not be recalculated based on additional scores posted "late".  I did check the one day a PCC was applied at Stoneleigh, and all scores posted for the day were adjusted, regardless of whether they were entered on that day or later.  So if there was a PCC for yesterday, it will apply to @bkuehn1952's score, even if he posts it today, as long as he posts it using yesterday's (correct) date..

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

As I understand it, the PCC will apply to all scores posted for the day, no matter when the scores were actually posted. 

I inquired about this — obviously a score posted "late" doesn't factor into determining if there is a PCC for that day — but I was under the impression that you wouldn't get the benefit of a PCC either.

But… I believe right now I had that one wrong. It had been discussed earlier, for fear of people "manipulating" when they'd post to take advantage of a PCC, but as that's mostly going to be in the vanity direction, and because that would require a lot of colluding anyway… they just scrapped it and went with the straight and easy math: if a PCC applies, they apply it.

So yeah, scratch the above.

But still, for better determination of PCC, post your scores that day if at all possible.

[bkuehn1952]

8 hours ago, RetiredOldMan said:

Good Morning Fellow Golfers,

A couple of items:

1. My "STATS" screen on my IPhone is just Grey Shaded, not in color. Any ideas on how to change this?

2. I am new to understanding my GHIN. Any ideas or articles I can look at to help me understand my GHIN better?

3. And last, how do you Golfers handle the negatives from other Golfer's who say they "don't need to keep a handicap, I'll never play in a tournament that requires it, and etc...too much time to keep scores, and on and on and on." I finally just keep it to myself. 

    Seems like a lot of people can tell me their handicap from years ago but don't keep track of it now. 

 

As you can see, I am 73 years old and play regularly with a younger golfer friend (61 years old) I generally shoot from the white Men's tees and have difficulty reaching the green in regulation. Would changing to the Senior tees lower my handicap? 

 

Thanks for your answers and advice, 

Retired Old Man 

1. Hopefully an experienced iPhone user can answer this.

2. This is a good place to start, except they almost have too much info.

Home | The World Handicap System

---

 

3. If someone asks my handicap, I tell them my current index (9.1).  I never offer that information unless asked. If someone questioned the wisdom of maintaining a handicap, I tell them I like to know where I stand on the golfing spectrum and my money also supports the USGA and our local golf association.

4. Will moving forward lower your handicap?  It is not supposed to lower or raise your handicap.  Your scores will be lower but the "differentials" ( [adjusted score - course rating] x [Slope/113] = differential) will reflect the relatively less difficult tees used.  In my opinion, sometimes playing more appropriate length tees can help lower one's handicap index.  The USGA disagrees with me.  Most of us agree that lower scores are more fun, even if the handicap stays the same.

 

[bkuehn1952]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

Brian, you could check now, if you know of anyone else who played that course that day and posted.

PCCs won't be applied retroactively, of course. I haven't checked yet to see what happens if there's a +2 for example and you post the day later. Does the +2 show in your column but isn't applied or is your PCC column simply left blank?

I checked two of the players in my group just now.  One posted his 5/1 score but I can't tell if he did it today, like I did, or yesterday.  No PCC adjustment.  The other player posted his score today and forgot to change the date to 5/1 so it shows that he played on 5/2.  

It may be that there were not enough scores posted on 5/1 or the results were within the expected range.  Just for fun I will check again tomorrow.

[bkuehn1952]

No PCC for May 1.

[phan52]

The new handicapping will take some getting used to, but I can now post my score hole-by-hole and I assume it would correct me if I post something outside the guidelines. Since you can post par+2 on any hole, and par+3 if you are getting a shot on that hole, one 12 handicapper I played with made an 8 and could post it on his card on a par 5 for the first time in decades. I hit one OB on a par 3 where I do not get a shot and made a 6, and had to post a 5. 

[bkuehn1952]

22 hours ago, phan52 said:

... I can now post my score hole-by-hole and I assume it would correct me if I post something outside the guidelines....

Yes, that is my understanding, too.  There are courses in the GHIN system where hole-by-hole scoring is not an option.  For example, my "Home" course Leslie Park GC is not available for hole-by-hole input.  My uninformed assumption is that Leslie and the USGA have not settled on the hole-by-hole handicap stroke allocation.  The USGA has been attempting to re-allocate handicap stroke allocations and for many courses, that will involve some changes.

I hope they get this sorted out soon.  I don't think most players, myself included, pay much attention to the handicap stroke allocation except when we pay a match.  That will make it a challenge to get the maximum hole score correct.

[billchao]

Two rounds so far this year. For my first round at Green Knoll, I was able to input my score hole-by-hole on GHIN. I was not able to input my score hole-by-hole at Warrenbrook, so I used the old scorecard to see if I needed to make any score adjustments to the total score. Turns out I did due to making triple bogey on the 18 handicap hole, so I had to make it a 6 for posting purposes.

It was easy to do in both cases.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, bkuehn1952 said:

Yes, that is my understanding, too.  There are courses in the GHIN system where hole-by-hole scoring is not an option.  For example, my "Home" course Leslie Park GC is not available for hole-by-hole input.  My uninformed assumption is that Leslie and the USGA have not settled on the hole-by-hole handicap stroke allocation.  The USGA has been attempting to re-allocate handicap stroke allocations and for many courses, that will involve some changes.

I could be wrong, but I doubt that's it. Courses are still allowed to do whatever they want; the USGA only recommends the stroke allocation stuff for courses that want to redo that. Most of the courses around me haven't changed those, and may only change them the next time the course is re-rated (or may not even change them then).

What their assessment of par is might be a factor, though. If they have a 445-yard par five or something, that should be a par four, that might be holding something up.

Or, perhaps your regional golf association just hasn't gotten around to certifying that all of the settings are right for that course, so it's not available for HBH scoring.

I'd email your regional golf association to ask.

[bkuehn1952]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

I'd email your regional golf association to ask.

Good idea. Thanks. Get the straight scoop instead of speculating.

[gbogey]

So I posted my 20th round yesterday.  I've been watching the calculation closely to see how the old calc compares to the new one.  I'm pretty good with statistics.  However, I don't understand that somehow the average of the lowest eight scores is almost always the same as the average of lowest ten scores *.96 (for that matter I never understood the purpose of the *.96 either).  Biggest deviation I saw over 20 scores was .1.

After 20 rounds my handicap is 6.0 whereas is would have been 5.8 under the old system.  The differences are:

1. I was surprised to find out that I had seven triple bogeys on holes where I was now allowed to max at triple instead of double.  I think this has to do with playing rounds at a 139 slope course instead of my home course (slope 114) due to covid closure - lots more hole to triple and a few of the holes are really tough.  Not surprisingly, only one of those seven rounds was in my best eight so the impact was +.01.  There would have been a second score if I had taken my medicine over trying a hero shot, but then it wouldn't have been a triple either.
2. I had a adverse PCC adjustment on one round, so that was another +.01.  Still trying to figure that one out as there was nothing unusually easy about the course that day.

[iacas]

8 hours ago, gbogey said:

 (for that matter I never understood the purpose of the *.96 either).

It was the "bonus for excellence." It gave a slight edge to the lower handicappers (and more so to the + handicappers).

Think about it: a differential of 27.2 would fall to a 26.1 while a differential of 4.3 would only fall to a 4.1. The 4 gives up one fewer shots to the 27.2 because of the multiplier.

8 hours ago, gbogey said:

1. I was surprised to find out that I had seven triple bogeys on holes where I was now allowed to max at triple instead of double. 

Yes, net double bogey.

8 hours ago, gbogey said:

1.  
2. I had a adverse PCC adjustment on one round, so that was another +.01.  Still trying to figure that one out as there was nothing unusually easy about the course that day.

People scored well that day. That's all there is to it.

Also, it's +1, not 0.01. PCCs are whole numbers. -1, 0, +1, +2, +3.

Well, -1 in this case. Basically it comes off the course rating. Mathematically it's the same as doing this… See 5.1a, but the formula is:

Differential = 113/Slope * (Score - Course Rating - PCC)

Which is the same as 113/Slope * (Score - (Course Rating + PCC))

So to make up numbers: 113/139 * (79 - 71.5 - -1) = 113/139 * (79 - 70.5) = 113/139 * 8.5 = 6.9

[gbogey]

16 hours ago, iacas said:

It was the "bonus for excellence." It gave a slight edge to the lower handicappers (and more so to the + handicappers).

Thank you.

16 hours ago, iacas said:

People scored well that day. That's all there is to it.

Also, it's +1, not 0.01. PCCs are whole numbers. -1, 0, +1, +2, +3.

Well, -1 in this case. Basically it comes off the course rating. Mathematically it's the same as doing this… See 5.1a, but the formula is:

Differential = 113/Slope * (Score - Course Rating - PCC)

Sorry, got my decimal wrong.  What I meant to say was that the effect of a -1 PCC on a best eight score was to increase my handicap by +0.1, so in this case my 6.0 would have been a 5.9. And yes, the PCC has the effect of adding a stroke to a round that for the differential gets adjusted by the rating, so with a 139 slope the differential increased by 0.8 and on a 113 slope course the differential would increase by 1.0.

Still feel a little cheated by the -1 PCC.  Unless there were friendly pins that I didn't notice, the course was playing no easier than usual that day.  Don't care about the handicap impact - it was one of my best rounds on a very tough golf course.  Feels like the round was slightly tainted.