Gambling is illegal at Bushwood

[No Mulligans]

14 minutes ago, mchepp said:

Usually you are playing skins against more than just one other person, no? Our group has 10 or so guys and everyone is in the skins game. So 9 other guys have the chance to beat me on a hole rather than me beating one guy on a hole. Also there's different variations, like carry over, or payball (where you just divide the money for the skins game by the number of skins won).

I guess I could have a skins game against someone else, one other person, but technically I could beat you 9 and 8 in match play and walk off the course, but in a skins game we'd play all 18 because every hole is worth something. 

So I guess not, in my book.

That's a good point.  And after reading that I prefer skins to match play.  At least in skins every hole means something.

[Fourputt]

2 hours ago, tdiii said:

Isn't skins really a match play event? 

 

1 hour ago, mchepp said:

Usually you are playing skins against more than just one other person, no? Our group has 10 or so guys and everyone is in the skins game. So 9 other guys have the chance to beat me on a hole rather than me beating one guy on a hole. Also there's different variations, like carry over, or payball (where you just divide the money for the skins game by the number of skins won).

I guess I could have a skins game against someone else, one other person, but technically I could beat you 9 and 8 in match play and walk off the course, but in a skins game we'd play all 18 because every hole is worth something. 

So I guess not, in my book.

It's still essentially scored like a match - you either win, lose or tie each hole.  In basic skins it works the same as match play for handicapping purposes.  If you are trying to make it work against a larger field, then no, it's not going to work any more than it works for a large field stroke competition.  That's why handicap stroke tournaments should be flighted to narrow the handicap gap.  

My Men's Club plays voluntary skins for all of our individual stroke play tournaments (up to 144 players), but they are all flighted and skins are only played within your flight, typically about 20-25 players with a 4 stroke handicap spread.  You never see a 5 handicap matched against a 20.

In the Wednesday group I used to play with, we did some games among the whole group of up to 15 players (with handicaps from 2 to 20), but skins were just within your own foursome and wheeled off the low cap.  Most of the skins I've ever played outside of the Men's Club have been just 2-4 players involved, and that means it works like match play for the skins calculations, even though we always played carries.

[natureboy]

11 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I don't believe a bogey golfer triples 1 out of 5 holes. I found a 19 handicap on game golf and they had the following. 

2% birdie, 21% par, 44% bogey, 21%  double, 9% Triple+

You found a single 19 HCP'er or an average of many 19 HCP'ers?

My initial average score for the 20 HCP could have been slightly high. It does depend on the individual golfer, but on average worse players have a much higher frequency of high numbers and that's where the better golfer tends to win. A long 'wild willy' who can putt may be a slightly different case, but most golfers are 'average andys'.

Most of the time in match play the stroke advantage is wasted by an uneven outcome on the hole so typically only about 60% (~11) of the available 'edge' of 18 strokes come into play.

Spoiler

There are two ways in which strokes fail to be used at all. Our sixteen‐handicapper might win a hole without needing his stroke or lose a hole in spite of having had one; so he might as well not have had a stroke at those holes! Actually, investigative work has been done on this‐ and there is a surprisingly consistent result. Just over 40% of a stroke entitlement, on average, is “wasted”

Here's a revision that reflects performance by HCP for an average of many golfers.

~ 18 HCP:

.04% eagle, 2% birdie, 20% par, 40% bogey, 26% double, 12% triple+

Applying the gain of the 'unwasted' 10.8 strokes proportionally to the net distribution of scores still leaves the higher HCP with a longer relative high score tail, because the distribution relating to the individual hole net outcomes will only partially shift.

1% net eagle, 13% net birdie, 32% net par, 32% net bogey, 17% net double, 5% net triple+

--------------------

~ Scratch

0.3% eagle, 13% birdie, 54% par, 24% bogey, 6% double, 2.7% triple+

 

The higher HCP will make slightly more net birdie+, but still gets parred to death, because their distribution of expected scores is flatter like this:

 

@tdiii the skins game is essentially an individual match play format, not a team format like fourball, yes? If so you might find the links below of interest. While they deal with a different HCP system, the relationship of the scoring distributions to the HCP is essentially the same.

https://www.scottishgolf.org/wp-content/uploads/Myths-and-Misconceptions1.pdf

http://www.maltagolf.org/handicaps/HANDICAP INFORMATION 4 - FULL HANDICAP ALLOWANCE IN MATCHPLAY.pdf 

12 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I don't believe a bogey golfer triples 1 out of 5 holes. I found a 19 handicap on game golf and they had the following. 

2% birdie, 21% par, 44% bogey, 21%  double, 9% Triple+

You found a single 19 HCP'er or an average of many 19 HCP'ers?

My initial average score for the 20 HCP could have been slightly high. It does depend on the individual golfer, but on average worse players have a much higher frequency of high numbers and that's where the better golfer tends to win.

Most of the time in match play the stroke advantage is wasted by an uneven outcome on the hole so typically only about 40% (~7) of the available 'edge' of 18 strokes come into play.

Spoiler

There are two ways in which strokes fail to be used at all. Our sixteen‐handicapper might win a hole without needing his stroke or lose a hole in spite of having had one; so he might as well not have had a stroke at those holes! Actually, investigative work has been done on this‐ and there is a surprisingly consistent result. Just over 40% of a stroke entitlement, on average, is “wasted”

Here's a revision that reflects performance by HCP for an average of many golfers.

~ 18 HCP:

2% birdie, 20% par, 40% bogey, 26% double, 12% triple+

Applying the 40% gain of the 'unwasted' 7.2 strokes proportionally to the net distribution of scores still leaves the higher HCP with a longer high score tail.

0.7% net eagle, 9% net birdie, 28% net par, 35% net bogey, 20% net double, 7.3% net triple+

--------------------

~ Scratch

0.3% eagle, 13% birdie+, 54% par, 24% bogey, 6% double, 2.7% triple+

 

 

Edited June 17, 2016 by natureboy

[natureboy]

5 hours ago, Fourputt said:

It's intended to make all players in a competition competitive.  That .96 multiplier just helps to counteract the low end variability of the high handicapper.  It's just a leveler, not an advantage to either player.

Doesn't it depend on the type of game (match vs. stroke & single vs team)? Why does Knuth say that the actual 'equal footing' multiplier would be like 108 instead of .96.

[Fourputt]

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

Doesn't it depend on the type of game (match vs. stroke & single vs team)? Why does Knuth say that the actual 'equal footing' multiplier would be like 108 instead of .96.

You have to take the entire USGA system into account, with the procedures recommended for each playing format.  When you do that the .96 tends (doesn't guarantee) to level the effect of the high handicapper's chances of scoring a much lower net than the near scratch golfer.  If the organizers of the competition do not follow USGA recommendations then the results can be out of anyone's control.  Setting up a competition or money game without any consideration for the handicap spread or number of players and how that affects the players' chances is just asking for problems.

That .96 difference becomes less of a factor the closer the handicaps are to each other, no matter how high or low they might be.  With a closely matched field, little or no adjustment is needed.

[natureboy]

41 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

You have to take the entire USGA system into account, with the procedures recommended for each playing format.  When you do that the .96 tends (doesn't guarantee) to level the effect of the high handicapper's chances of scoring a much lower net than the near scratch golfer.

That .96 difference becomes less of a factor the closer the handicaps are to each other, no matter how high or low they might be.  With a closely matched field, little or no adjustment is needed.

Fair point that the USGA does put out recommendations specific to different formats to improve equity and it makes sense that closely matched 'flights' will have more closely overlapping scoring distributions. Due to ESC, the better half average, and the .96, higher HCPs are at a severe disadvantage to lower HCPs if they both play an average round. At least there is information out there indicating this, but it takes a little digging.

I would personally be okay with a z-score (mean and std deviation based) competition system, but that may have to wait until we all have microprocessors implanted in our arms.or mini HAL's on a bracelet (Actually you don't even need HAL in the bracelet, just a good digital wireless connection tapped into the remote AI that you can query and give instructions to by voice - the subscription fee for access to the AI is likely to be pretty high though).