Slope & Rating - I Get Lower Differentials from Shorter Tees

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

A player's skill or potential ability does not change, or change much, because of where a golfer plays,

That's inaccurate.

I had a longer post written, but it boils down to the fact that you've already gotten the correct, direct responses a few times and you've chosen to ignore them because you have some false beliefs about the golfer's "ability."

I'm not even sure you know how to calculate your course handicap. Your 16.2 is your handicap index (which is not a measure of your ability, but more accurately, your potential).

Golfer ability fluctuates wildly, even hole to hole. Golfers can get 4.5 and 13.8 differentials playing two rounds the same DAY, from the same course, and the same tees.

[Cartboy]

I'm fairly certain I know what I am trying to say, that after more than fifty years of playing the game by the rules in competition or in casual rounds, neither my ability nor my potential, terms which I use as equivalents, change from course-to-course or tee setting to tee setting.  It is what it is, and my Handicap Index reflects that.

In the long haul, over a number of rounds, it should not be affected by the Slope or Rating I play, provided the Slopes and Ratings are accurate.

If I know I can honestly affect my Index (and get more strokes), then Slope and Rating are not doing what they are designed to do, level then playing field.

But, I get the inference that I am not listening, or reading as the case may be,

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hardspoon]

7 minutes ago, natureboy said:

But higher variance in scores is a feature of the average lower skilled golfer vs lower HCPs.

So what? The claim was that ESC could create a significant variance in differential for golfers of the same skill. Like I said above, that would take a very strange outlier situation.

I appreciate that you like to argue about this stuff, but your last post was just you repeating the same irrelevant thing 7 times ("higher handicap golfers have more variance in scores").

If you think ESC can regularly account for a significant difference in indices for golfers of the same skill, and can explain why in 50 words or less, I'm interested to hear it.

2 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

If I know I can honestly affect my Index (and get more strokes), then Slope and Rating are not doing what they are designed to do, level then playing field.

Not necessarily. If a significant amount of golfers can do it, then the system is flawed. It can't possibly cover every individual golfer, and you're one of those outliers. That's all.

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

I'm fairly certain I know what I am trying to say, that after more than fifty years of playing the game by the rules in competition or in casual rounds, neither my ability nor my potential, terms which I use as equivalents, change from course-to-course or tee setting to tee setting.  It is what it is, and my Handicap Index reflects that.

I don't know what to tell you, then. You're wrong. Your ability (which is not the same as your potential, unless you're as good as you're ever capable of being) is not consistent, unchanging, 100% the same all the time.

16 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

In the long haul, over a number of rounds, it should not be affected by the Slope or Rating I play, provided the Slopes and Ratings are accurate.

For crying out loud… read what people have written.

16 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

I'm fairly certain I know what I am trying to say, that after more than fifty years of playing the game by the If I know I can honestly affect my Index (and get more strokes), then Slope and Rating are not doing what they are designed to do, level then playing field.

But, I get the inference that I am not listening, or reading as the case may be,

You aren't.

You're one person, and you're not even doing a good job of supporting your unique case with much data (numbers). The handicap system is pretty damn good, considering all the variables it has to take into consideration. There are going to be exceptions. My daughter played against kids who shot better scores on long, higher rated courses that were wide open because they hit the ball far but wildly, and she cleaned up on them on shorter, tighter courses. That's totally to be epected. Expecting perfection as you are is completely unrealistic.

15 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

If you think ESC can regularly account for a significant difference in indices for golfers of the same skill, and can explain why in 50 words or less, I'm interested to hear it.

I'm not. The OP isn't even a higher handicapper. That's off topic.

[Cartboy]

I know things other people don't.

 

[Cartboy]

I see my thread topic has been changed ( Slope, Rating & GHIN Index), as if someone else is a better judge of what I want to say.

First thing tomorrow, we'll get a committee to look into that, to see who has been hacking us.

In the meantime, it looks like my plan will be to play 20 rounds from the Tips before competitive golf starts again in the Spring.

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by Cartboy

[Pendragon]

4 hours ago, Cartboy said:

I've never been asked what tee(s) I played to establish my handicap (Index), the assumption being, I believe, that the Index is fair regardless of what tee(s) I played.  Actually, no one asks what my index is, they just ask what my handicap is for the tee we're playing.

I know I can increase my handicap (Index), and get more strokes at every tee setting, by playing a higher Slope/Rating.

Every time you post a score you're telling the system what tees you played. 

I belong to a senior men's club, and about half the guys play the forward tees and the rest of us play the white tees. Most of these knuckleheads can't figure out what their course handicap is without help. But they all know what their index is, and we can easily figure it out from there. 

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

I see my thread topic has been changed, as if someone else is a better judge of what I want to say.

I changed it. It more accurately reflects the topic.

4 hours ago, Cartboy said:

I know I can increase my handicap (Index), and get more strokes at every tee setting, by playing a higher Slope/Rating.

Your handicap index doesn't change when you change tees. Your course handicap (for that round) does.

If you mean that eventually it changes if you consistently play a different set of tees, well, that's been explained above several times.

[Cartboy]

18 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Every time you post a score you're telling the system what tees you played. 

I said that in response to the post that said as long as I play the tee I set my Index at, it will be accurate, or something like that.

14 minutes ago, iacas said:

Your handicap index doesn't change when you change tees.

You're right that one of us has not been following, or understanding.

I guarantee that, based on my experience, if I play the next 20 rounds from the tips, my INDEX will be higher, and if I play the next 20 rounds from the front, my INDEX will be lower.

The entire gist of this thread is that when I play shorter tees/lower Slope/Rating for a number of rounds, my Index goes down, and vice versa. 

I thought what I was doing is asking if that happens to anyone else.

Well, I thought that was it.  Let me go look.

Yup:

"Anyone else have a lower GHIN Index when they play lower Slopes?"

So, back to where I started . . . does that happen to anyone else, that if you play lower Slope/Rating tees for a number of rounds, you Index goes down?

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by Cartboy

[bkuehn1952]

4 hours ago, Cartboy said:

Anyway, anyone have a lower GHIN Index when they play easier tees?

All other things being equal, my differentials, in general, tend to be a bit lower when playing a shorter course.  I know a number of fellow seniors who believe their best chance of posting a good differential comes from a course that is shorter.  I have never studied the issue and most of our "evidence" is largely or entirely anecdotal. 

I believe the posters who describe the course rating and slope system as representing an average are correct. Inevitably all of us fall along a broad spectrum.  Few will be exactly on the average.  Some, like you, may be outliers. 

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, Cartboy said:

I said that in response to the post that said as long as I play the tee I set my Index at, it will be accurate, or something like that.

Your index is your index. It includes  times you play short courses and long courses. There is no separate index for each tee box. 

 

[Cartboy]

48 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Your index is your index. It includes  times you play short courses and long courses. There is no separate index for each tee box. 

 

Yeah, of course I know that.  I believe you took something I said out of context.  No problem, it has happened a lot.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Cartboy

[saevel25]

1 minute ago, Cartboy said:

Yeah, of course I know that.  I believe you took something I said out of context.

This, 

"I said that in response to the post that said as long as I play the tee I set my Index at, it will be accurate, or something like that."

This statement means you set your index at a the tees you choose. 

[Cartboy]

2 hours ago, Pendragon said:

I belong to a senior men's club, and about half the guys play the forward tees and the rest of us play the white tees. Most of these knuckleheads can't figure out what their course handicap is without help. But they all know what their index is, and we can easily figure it out from there. 

If you and the others in your club played the next 20 rounds from the tips, what do you think would happen to your Indexes?

[iacas]

Matt, he's saying there that if he plays the same tees all the time, his index will be completely accurate from those tees. That's true.

5 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

If you and the others in your club played the next 20 rounds from the tips, what do you think would happen to your Indexes?

Different people react to different yardages, course setups, etc. differently.

Again, the same 9 handicapper can shoot 75 on a wide open 73.6/134 course and shoot 86 on a narrow, heavily treed 73.6/134 course.

Another example: two courses might have the same rating and two guys might have the same handicap, but if they play a course with tougher greens, the better putter of the two is more likely to win.

The handicap and slope/rating system does a very good job of generalizing, but it's not perfect for every variation in player's games out there.

Again.

[Cartboy]

Having just re-read this entire thread, I see that a few of you have entertained the possibility that what I have experienced is possible, and given some possible reasons. 

I appreciate that.

I never said it is not a good system, not that that matters, since it's the system.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by Cartboy

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

Having just re-read this entire thread, I see that a few of you have entertained the possibility that what I have experienced is possible, and given some possible reasons.

It's not only possible, it's quite likely, because almost nobody is going to fit the model 100% exactly. Everyone's going to play one kind of course a little better or worse. Nobody's game precisely matches the model (i.e. nobody is exactly the same as the theoretical "scratch" or "bogey" golfer or the line that connects those two).

8 hours ago, Cartboy said:

That should not be the case.

That's the kind of stuff people like myself were responding to. It's expected, not unusual, that you can get these types of situations where there's a sort of "sweet spot" for certain players, or a course setup that favors them, or whatever else comes into play.

For you that's shorter courses. For me, and a lot of lower index golfers, they actually get slightly lower differentials on longer, tougher courses. Wild players tend to score - comparatively - better on wide open courses. Good putters score comparatively better on courses with difficult greens.

Etc.

[Cartboy]

Let me try another way as re-stating my OP:

When I play a number of rounds at tee settings that suit my game, my handicap index goes down.  and vice versa. 

Anyone else?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by Cartboy