World Handicap System Now Out (2020)

[DaveP043]

7 hours ago, reidsou said:

I'm in western Washington. Our active season begins again on March 1st, but members play all year. 

Would like to give them a heads up about what will be different in the new handicap revision they receive on January 1. You are probably right that most won't care though. 

Have you made plans to attend a Handicap Seminar?  I know my state association is holding a bunch of them, and I'll be at one next week.  It seems like an appropriate step for a handicap committee member hoping to be ready for the changes.

[dsc123]

The consensus at my home club is that it plays significantly harder than its rating.  I'm sure we're not the only ones telling ourselves that, but assuming we're right, and scores are consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, wouldn't that now show up in the daily adjustment calcs?  And if it happens regularly, would that be a red flag that might prompt to the USGA to re-rate the course? 

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, dsc123 said:

The consensus at my home club is that it plays significantly harder than its rating.  I'm sure we're not the only ones telling ourselves that, but assuming we're right, and scores are consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, wouldn't that now show up in the daily adjustment calcs?  And if it happens regularly, would that be a red flag that might prompt to the USGA to re-rate the course? 

Yes, but your course was re-rated within the last ten years for sure, or it's not even valid and can't be used for a handicap.

And, often, members have no real clue what goes into a course rating… and if they play many rounds at their home course, their handicaps will reflect how they play. So… no adjustment may be forthcoming if the handicaps are indeed accurate.

[mauricio]

23 minutes ago, dsc123 said:

The consensus at my home club is that it plays significantly harder than its rating.  I'm sure we're not the only ones telling ourselves that, but assuming we're right, and scores are consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, wouldn't that now show up in the daily adjustment calcs?  And if it happens regularly, would that be a red flag that might prompt to the USGA to re-rate the course? 

People don't know how USGA Course Rating is calculated as @iacas said, and mostly of it is based on distance. I have the same feeling in my course that probably the only way should be making the course to be played longer, not necessarily extending the course only. But I believe short courses tend to be tougher to lower handicap, when your course have a Course Rating from 69 or under with PAR 72, it's about 3 strokes or more under the par to make your handicap lower from playing the par gross. 

[dsc123]

Sure.  I'm not trying to convince anyone that we're right.  Particularly random people on the internet who will never play my course😉.  I'm just curious about the new rating system.  I'm looking forward to seeing whether it will prove us right or wrong!

[Pretzel]

55 minutes ago, dsc123 said:

The consensus at my home club is that it plays significantly harder than its rating.  I'm sure we're not the only ones telling ourselves that, but assuming we're right, and scores are consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, wouldn't that now show up in the daily adjustment calcs?  And if it happens regularly, would that be a red flag that might prompt to the USGA to re-rate the course? 

This is likely just because most people don't truly understand how the handicap system works. Your average score will be higher than the course rating plus your handicap index, because it's calculated from your best 10 scores. Outliers are exponentially more likely to be high scores rather than exceptionally low scores, which drags your average score higher than your index. Your index will be lower than even your median score, because it's actually slightly lower than the mean of your best 10 while the median would be your 10th best.

Besides that, if you all play your home course regularly your handicap will be generated primarily from scores at that home course anyways. If the scores truly were consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, then your handicaps would simply rise to match the scores posted. The only time you'd ever potentially see a difference is if your handicap was created using scores from other courses, because if you primarily play a single course your handicap will stabilize towards the scores you achieve at that course.

That said, as mentioned by others the ratings are strongly influenced by distance (too strongly, in my opinion). My handicap, when I last carried one, was lower than you might have guessed based on my scores simply because it was created in large part by playing courses that were in the 7,300-7,400 yard range. I didn't actually shoot under par often at all, but when shooting even par gives you a differential of between +2 and +3.5 you don't have to shoot under par to get a low handicap. I just had some personal thing where if I played shorter courses my scores would still be between one under and five over, so it's not like I was shooting 63's at easy courses ever.

[DaveP043]

45 minutes ago, dsc123 said:

The consensus at my home club is that it plays significantly harder than its rating.  I'm sure we're not the only ones telling ourselves that, but assuming we're right, and scores are consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, wouldn't that now show up in the daily adjustment calcs?  And if it happens regularly, would that be a red flag that might prompt to the USGA to re-rate the course? 

But your handicaps are based on your current scoring on this course.  The PCC will only go into effect when scores for a particular day are higher or lower than they are normally.  Do you expect that your average scores as a group will be higher once you go into the new year?  If the scores, in general, remain the same, it will prove nothing.  If the scores go up, it might mean that the golf skills of your club are declining.

1 minute ago, Pretzel said:

The only time you'd ever potentially see a difference is if your handicap was created using scores from other courses, because if you primarily play a single course your handicap will stabilize towards the scores you achieve at that course.

I was just thinking along these lines.  With a group of golfers playing the same course all the time, handicaps become normalized, whether the rating is "too high" or "too low."  Its only when people play other courses that the "accuracy" of ratings comes into play.  If your members consistently shoot lower differentials when you play away than they do at home, that might indicate that your rating is too low.  Same thing if guests shoot higher differentials at your course than they do at home.  It might be possible, with enough data, to evaluate which courses are rated too high, or too low, but I've never head that anything of this sort is being considered.

[dsc123]

4 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

This is likely just because most people don't truly understand how the handicap system works. Your average score will be higher than the course rating plus your handicap index, because it's calculated from your best 10 scores. Outliers are exponentially more likely to be high scores rather than exceptionally low scores, which drags your average score higher than your index. Your index will be lower than even your median score, because it's actually slightly lower than the mean of your best 10 while the median would be your 10th best.

Besides that, if you all play your home course regularly your handicap will be generated primarily from scores at that home course anyways. If the scores truly were consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, then your handicaps would simply rise to match the scores posted. The only time you'd ever potentially see a difference is if your handicap was created using scores from other courses, because if you primarily play a single course your handicap will stabilize towards the scores you achieve at that course.

Right, like I said, I'm not going to try to convince anyone that we're right or wrong.  You don't know us, we don't know you, there's no point in debating whether we know how handicaps work, etc.

But your last point is a good one.  My impression is based mostly on the fact that when I play other similarly rated courses, even courses I've never played before, I score significantly better.  (Again, not trying to convince you this means I'm right.)  But since those away rounds are less frequent, they will appear as the outliers rather than my home rounds.  And since the away rounds are less frequent, they won't make a big difference on my HC, and therefore the scores at my home course will be in line with my HC.  So I guess the new system won't help settle this!

[iacas]

21 minutes ago, dsc123 said:

Sure.  I'm not trying to convince anyone that we're right.  Particularly random people on the internet who will never play my course😉.  I'm just curious about the new rating system.  I'm looking forward to seeing whether it will prove us right or wrong!

It's just the math, that's all I'm saying. Like this:

13 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Besides that, if you all play your home course regularly your handicap will be generated primarily from scores at that home course anyways. If the scores truly were consistently higher than handicaps would suggest, then your handicaps would simply rise to match the scores posted.

Unless your members regularly and frequently play elsewhere, their handicaps are generated almost entirely from rounds on that course, so it's going to be "correct" regardless.

Unless everyone thinks they're a better golfer than they are, which I'm not ruling out.

8 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I was just thinking along these lines.  With a group of golfers playing the same course all the time, handicaps become normalized, whether the rating is "too high" or "too low."  Its only when people play other courses that the "accuracy" of ratings comes into play.  If your members consistently shoot lower differentials when you play away than they do at home, that might indicate that your rating is too low.  Same thing if guests shoot higher differentials at your course than they do at home.  It might be possible, with enough data, to evaluate which courses are rated too high, or too low, but I've never head that anything of this sort is being considered.

This.

[Pretzel]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Unless your members regularly and frequently play elsewhere, their handicaps are generated almost entirely from rounds on that course, so it's going to be "correct" regardless.

Unless everyone thinks they're a better golfer than they are, which I'm not ruling out.

Exactly what I meant. Most golfers play a majority of their rounds at a single course, which means their handicaps are built primarily off of scores from that one course. Those who are members at a course (for a men's club or a course membership) are especially likely to play that course more often than any others.

It's almost certainly either confusion about average scores vs handicaps or it's a group of golfers who think they're better than they are. I've fallen into that trap before, it's easy to remember the good rounds and think that's the kind of golf you play on average. It's particularly easy to remember good rounds at other courses, because they stand out from just another round at the course you play most. This could lead golfers to thinking they're better at playing other courses compared to playing their home course.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Exactly what I meant.

I know. I was replying to @dsc123 by using your post to save me the time of typing that out.

[mauricio]

The Software of Handicap's System can show exactly that difference, we have BlueGolf in Brazil, so you can see under the reports the Handicap calculated ( Main Handicap / Trend / Local (home scores only) / tournament (scores). And if needed sometimes could be used for club tournament a specific handicap, why not? What do you think about it?

[mauricio]

Somebody said new course rating system, I took part of the calibration seminar for the Course Rating, there's no other changes then those needed because of the new rules of golf like penalty area, so some changes vary as courses have their local rules, the biggest change is for two obstacles (those who are raters or curious about the topic can easily understand) OB/ExtremeRough and water.

[iacas]

46 minutes ago, mauricio said:

Somebody said new course rating system, I took part of the calibration seminar for the Course Rating, there's no other changes then those needed because of the new rules of golf like penalty area, so some changes vary as courses have their local rules, the biggest change is for two obstacles (those who are raters or curious about the topic can easily understand) OB/ExtremeRough and water.

In the UK, they have not had the course rating system like we've had in the US and some other areas. They've just had a daily standard scratch score or something like that. No slope, no bogey rating (used to determine the slope), no fixed course rating… etc.

[dsc123]

47 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I was just thinking along these lines.  With a group of golfers playing the same course all the time, handicaps become normalized, whether the rating is "too high" or "too low."  Its only when people play other courses that the "accuracy" of ratings comes into play.  If your members consistently shoot lower differentials when you play away than they do at home, that might indicate that your rating is too low.  Same thing if guests shoot higher differentials at your course than they do at home.  It might be possible, with enough data, to evaluate which courses are rated too high, or too low, but I've never head that anything of this sort is being considered.

Yup.  You're exactly right. 

[DaveP043]

Bumping this up again.  I'll be attending a Handicap Seminar next Tuesday, and I'm willing to ask any (reasonable) questions that any of y'all would want me to.  I've kept up to date on most of the progress of the WHS, and have read through the new Handicap Rules.  My interest will be primarily in the transition process.  This will be particularly important for us in Virginia, as we have year-round handicap posting.  From what I've read on the Carolina Golf Association pages, they anticipate just a few days of down time right around New Years for the computer systems to transition, I'd anticipate the same for us.  Further north, you'll have a bit more time to learn and to adjust to the new system.  Anyway, let me know if there are specific questions you'd like to get answered.

[iacas]

Ideally there shouldn't be many questions, as the handicap manual is available for all, etc. now.

So, do yourself a favor if you have a handicapping question and check the manual first. You may learn not only the answer to your question but more than that.

[Jrwatkins7]

5 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

Bumping this up again.  I'll be attending a Handicap Seminar next Tuesday, and I'm willing to ask any (reasonable) questions that any of y'all would want me to.  I've kept up to date on most of the progress of the WHS, and have read through the new Handicap Rules.  My interest will be primarily in the transition process.  This will be particularly important for us in Virginia, as we have year-round handicap posting.  From what I've read on the Carolina Golf Association pages, they anticipate just a few days of down time right around New Years for the computer systems to transition, I'd anticipate the same for us.  Further north, you'll have a bit more time to learn and to adjust to the new system.  Anyway, let me know if there are specific questions you'd like to get answered.

I think that the only real part for us in the US that seems to not be 100% clear is the PCC.  I would like to see some examples of what these instances (which I don't think will be that common) would look like.  Is it subjective or an automatic response to scores posted that day? If there are eight (I think I read that's the minimum) scores posted one day, and 1 person shoots their number and the other seven shoot 8-10 over their course handicap, what happens?