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8 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

 You kinda lost me at the word modicum.. Why do you hate america man?  Man up and make a birdie or two. You cant challenge the bull and expect to get only one horn! You get the full rack!  Thats liberal-socialist talk right there

Oh believe me I can get plenty of satisfaction of being a bogey golfer strait up if he brings a fat wallet :-$ 

I give double digit handicaps strokes strokes in match play. Never in skins or junk, though. Forget that noise. When money pots are involved, I'm not helping anyone else but me. 

There's one "4" handicap who plays as well as his friend on the web tour, but somehow maintains a 4 handicap. I think he somehow forgets to put a + in it when making bets just so he doesn't have to give any strokes. He plays in $1500 games around here, and I really didn't ask more details about it. All I know is everyone in my area playing those types of stakes are really good and don't maintain actual handicaps.

 

20 hours ago, Fourputt said:

You are so typical of the scratch and near scratch golfer... you can't seem to grasp the idea that handicaps are designed to give the weaker player some hope of a modicum of success against the better player. You seem to feel that because you are a better player, you should win no matter what the circumstances.  I don't know how you can get any satisfaction from beating a bogey golfer playing him straight up.  He doesn't have  a prayer of ever coming out on top.  Like Erik said, I might make a birdie once in 5 or more rounds.  They never came easy, and as I get older, it's harder than ever to get one.

Honestly, it only really makes sense to play straight up for money. Generally, it's pretty easy to find people with the same ability, and don't make huge bets with people you don't know. Ego plays a big part in losing.

I met two kids the other day who were pretending to play terrible, they weren't very good at hiding it, yet. The better one accidentally hit a towering 5i off the tee about 220 yards, then proceeded to piddle down the fairway. What made me suspicious was the fact that they could keep track of all 11 strokes a hole and their swings were pretty good. The ones that are harder to tell are the ones who break their wrists at the top of their swings to hit slices, then suddenly straighten things out when a large string of skins is on the line.

The bottom line is if you are truly a bogey golfer, don't play for more money than you can casually lose.

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22 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Why not? We're pretty nice people. Most skins i play in are birdies only, sometimes pars are good. Anyone can get a natural birdie on a single hole and possibly win a skin. Ive played skins with guys around your cap that have had some pretty nice days with the junk mixed in. Sandy birdie? Cha-ching! 

I have played gross skins with scratch golfers who were very nice people and happy since they always took my money!  I have also had low handicap co-workers not speak to me for weeks after taking their money in a net skins game.  Maybe its the people I have played with but in my regular foursome for about 10 years we were all similar golfers and no one received more than a couple of strokes per side.  Win some, lose some, no hard feelings.  I know the handicap system tries to level the playing field to a certain degree but I just do not think that golfers with a great difference in skill levels should play each other in matches - gross or net.    

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11 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

I have played gross skins with scratch golfers who were very nice people and happy since they always took my money!  I have also had low handicap co-workers not speak to me for weeks after taking their money in a net skins game.  Maybe its the people I have played with but in my regular foursome for about 10 years we were all similar golfers and no one received more than a couple of strokes per side.  Win some, lose some, no hard feelings.  I know the handicap system tries to level the playing field to a certain degree but I just do not think that golfers with a great difference in skill levels should play each other in matches - gross or net.    

I agree, but in stroke play they can be pretty equitable.

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12 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

I have played gross skins with scratch golfers who were very nice people and happy since they always took my money!  

Funny how that works. I used to "donate" $20 to a game that had the likes of Notah Begay, Kent Jones, and DJ Brigman playing in it. It was worth it just to get a chance to play with those guys. 

 

14 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

 I have also had low handicap co-workers not speak to me for weeks after taking their money in a net skins game.  

My own father is a bit that way. He would lose a dollar and be all pissy about it. Funny thing was he would be playing for free at the course where he worked so the whole day would cost him $3 where the guy he lost to was still out the $47 green fee. He could never see it that way.

17 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

Maybe its the people I have played with but in my regular foursome for about 10 years we were all similar golfers and no one received more than a couple of strokes per side.  Win some, lose some, no hard feelings.  

My regular foursome often jokes that we pass around the same $5 each week. 

18 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

  I know the handicap system tries to level the playing field to a certain degree but I just do not think that golfers with a great difference in skill levels should play each other in matches - gross or net.    

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18 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

 I know the handicap system tries to level the playing field to a certain degree but I just do not think that golfers with a great difference in skill levels should play each other in matches - gross or net.    

I think in individual matches, even foursomes and fourballs, or very small numbers of players at stroke play, handicaps work out pretty well.  For larger fields, or for skins, large handicap differences become more of a problem.  

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28 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

Play net and gross skins. Several of the big groups I play in do both. I also occasionally play in a group that plays net skins but adds in low gross score. So basically you pay in $20. There are normally 20 guys so the pot is $400. If there are 5 skins out you divide the pot 6 ways so each skin gets $66 and the low gross score gets $66. You can also do low gross front and back.

Ive done games like that. A little better than strait up net. And when you get 20 some players in a pot, sometimes low gross kickers is the only money that ends up getting paid out. I remember that happening in a big pot last year where only front back and overall got paid out. Every birdie got cut, even with the net. I dont think we did net eagles though. 

22 minutes ago, NJpatbee said:

I have played gross skins with scratch golfers who were very nice people and happy since they always took my money!  I have also had low handicap co-workers not speak to me for weeks after taking their money in a net skins game.  Maybe its the people I have played with but in my regular foursome for about 10 years we were all similar golfers and no one received more than a couple of strokes per side.  Win some, lose some, no hard feelings.  I know the handicap system tries to level the playing field to a certain degree but I just do not think that golfers with a great difference in skill levels should play each other in matches - gross or net.    

Hahaha! yes.... 

For me, it depends on how the match is made. I don't usually challenge anyone outside my skill range to a match. I consider anyone from a +2 to 2 in my general skill range. But if i get challenged by like a 10 handicap or something, i usually accept. Regardless of skill, i never give out more than 2 or 3 a side though. If a double digit handi still excepts on those terms, its just their fault if i crush them.  

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On 11/9/2017 at 11:21 AM, Lihu said:

There's one "4" handicap who plays as well as his friend on the web tour, but somehow maintains a 4 handicap. I think he somehow forgets to put a + in it when making bets just so he doesn't have to give any strokes. He plays in $1500 games around here, and I really didn't ask more details about it. All I know is everyone in my area playing those types of stakes are really good and don't maintain actual handicaps.

 

Honestly, it only really makes sense to play straight up for money. Generally, it's pretty easy to find people with the same ability, and don't make huge bets with people you don't know. Ego plays a big part in losing.

I met two kids the other day who were pretending to play terrible, they weren't very good at hiding it, yet. The better one accidentally hit a towering 5i off the tee about 220 yards, then proceeded to piddle down the fairway. What made me suspicious was the fact that they could keep track of all 11 strokes a hole and their swings were pretty good. The ones that are harder to tell are the ones who break their wrists at the top of their swings to hit slices, then suddenly straighten things out when a large string of skins is on the line.

The bottom line is if you are truly a bogey golfer, don't play for more money than you can casually lose.

True for pretty much everything in life involving money :)

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38 minutes ago, Zekez said:

True for pretty much everything in life involving money :)

Yeah. . .of course. My communications skills still suck.

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13 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Yeah. . .of course. My communications skills still suck.

oh,I don't know...."Casually lose" is a fair description  if that was your point.

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We adopted half stroke net skins and no strokes on the Par 3's.  The half stroke options seems to work for the wide range of handicaps.  The low guys are not getting halved (4 for 3) for their birdies and the higher handicaps can compete with the lower guys.  If 2 players get a birdie on the same hole - and 1 of them strokes on the hole, then the higher handicapper wins with the half stroke (3 for 2.5) as he should win it when against the lower handicapper.


We added in no strokes on par3's because on our course, those are generally the higher allocated handicapped holes and many people were tired of same guys winning a skin on par 3 when it was 3 for 2.5 or 3 for 2 (when we used to do whole strokes)

 

 

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3 hours ago, foxhole88 said:

We adopted half stroke net skins and no strokes on the Par 3's.  The half stroke options seems to work for the wide range of handicaps.  The low guys are not getting halved (4 for 3) for their birdies and the higher handicaps can compete with the lower guys.  If 2 players get a birdie on the same hole - and 1 of them strokes on the hole, then the higher handicapper wins with the half stroke (3 for 2.5) as he should win it when against the lower handicapper.


We added in no strokes on par3's because on our course, those are generally the higher allocated handicapped holes and many people were tired of same guys winning a skin on par 3 when it was 3 for 2.5 or 3 for 2 (when we used to do whole strokes)

Higher hcp players will still tend to par (and thus win) more par-4's than low hcprs will birdie.

I'm a huge proponent of the hcp system, but just don't think it works all that well in skins...

And welcome back, haven't heard from you in awhile!  :beer:

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16 hours ago, David in FL said:

Higher hcp players will still tend to par (and thus win) more par-4's than low hcprs will birdie.

I'm a huge proponent of the hcp system, but just don't think it works all that well in skins...

And welcome back, haven't heard from you in awhile!  :beer:

You say that as if you expect the higher handicap to get strokes on every par 4.  He won't (or at least he shouldn't unless you're giving him 18 strokes), and he is also more likely to bogey or double bogey most of those par 4 holes than he is to par them.  Back when my handicap was a bit lower and I was usually giving strokes to my companions, I looked at those holes as an opportunity to win a skin.  I generally felt that the advantage was mine. 

Once again, I'm not talking about me against a large field.  In those weekly Wednesday morning casual rounds with 12-15 players, we still only played skins (usually $.50 skins) within our own fourball, we wheeled off the low man (which was sometimes me at 9-10, and I was often playing with a 25+, giving a lot of strokes), and I rarely came out on the short end of the skins bet.  Whichever way the skins went on a given day, I rarely lost or won more than $5.  Usually everyone in the group would win a couple of holes, so that way about half the holes canceled each other out.  The more unusual outlier was the odd day when there would be carryover of more than 2 or 3 holes.  Those days one player might clean up just because of that one win taking 5 or 6 skins, but that was a lot less common.  

I didn't have to birdie to to win a skin, and a good thing because I have never been a consistent birdie player.  On days when I went out and made a lot of pars, I'd usually clean up on the skins game.  We usually had several small stakes money games going during the round along with the skins, so there were plenty of other chances to win or lose a few bucks.

Edited by Fourputt

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Rick your experiences don’t seem to align with most. In most the high handicappers even in a small group have an advantage.

It’s fine that they don’t align. But noteworthy.

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20 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

You say that as if you expect the higher handicap to get strokes on every par 4.  He won't (or at least he shouldn't unless you're giving him 18 strokes), and he is also more likely to bogey or double bogey most of those par 4 holes than he is to par them.  Back when my handicap was a bit lower and I was usually giving strokes to my companions, I looked at those holes as an opportunity to win a skin.  I generally felt that the advantage was mine. 

Once again, I'm not talking about me against a large field.  In those weekly Wednesday morning casual rounds with 12-15 players, we still only played skins (usually $.50 skins) within our own fourball, we wheeled off the low man (which was sometimes me at 9-10, and I was often playing with a 25+, giving a lot of strokes), and I rarely came out on the short end of the skins bet.  Whichever way the skins went on a given day, I rarely lost or won more than $5.  Usually everyone in the group would win a couple of holes, so that way about half the holes canceled each other out.  The more unusual outlier was the odd day when there would be carryover of more than 2 or 3 holes.  Those days one player might clean up just because of that one win taking 5 or 6 skins, but that was a lot less common.  

I didn't have to birdie to to win a skin, and a good thing because I have never been a consistent birdie player.  On days when I went out and made a lot of pars, I'd usually clean up on the skins game.  We usually had several small stakes money games going during the round along with the skins, so there were plenty of other chances to win or lose a few bucks.

In a skins game between a bogey and a low single digit or scratch player, you get to play really conservatively. That's a huge advantage over your normal bogey game.

Pars count as birdies on all the holes given to you. You can even "play it" by taking a much shorter club than you'd normally take and not swing "all out" on any tee shots. Most of the time, even better players score quite a few bogeys and generally offset them with birdies on specific holes. However, a par on the same hole a better player can birdie is very likely a par with very conservative playing for a bogey golfer. If not those are the few skins you'd lose.

Plus, the mental aspect of giving 16 or 18 strokes to the bogey golfer is huge, and you can tell by the responses from the low single digit to plus players.

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3 hours ago, Lihu said:

In a skins game between a bogey and a low single digit or scratch player, you get to play really conservatively. That's a huge advantage over your normal bogey game.

Pars count as birdies on all the holes given to you. You can even "play it" by taking a much shorter club than you'd normally take and not swing "all out" on any tee shots. Most of the time, even better players score quite a few bogeys and generally offset them with birdies on specific holes. However, a par on the same hole a better player can birdie is very likely a par with very conservative playing for a bogey golfer. If not those are the few skins you'd lose.

Plus, the mental aspect of giving 16 or 18 strokes to the bogey golfer is huge, and you can tell by the responses from the low single digit to plus players.

Then those guy need to get tougher.  If they go into a match thinking that they already lost, they might as well concede.  I've played both skins and matches where I was giving as high as 25 strokes after zeroing my handicap.  While it is a bit unsettling, you still have to play golf, as does that other guy.  Get him down a couple of holes and the pressure on him to come back is a lot greater, and has a stronger negative effect on his play, than it should on the better player. 

I know that's true in general, I saw it happen too often to believe that a bogey golfer can play for bogeys and actually achieve that on a regular basis.  For the last few years I've been that bogey golfer, and trying to come from behind, or trying to play conservatively to not fall behind, puts more pressure on my game than it can take these days.  Trying to play safe is rarely a good situation for a bogey or worse golfer.  Not to mention that most bogey golfers in my experience don't analyze their play that well.  We simply don't hit the ball where we want to often enough to cash in on trying to play safe, especially under the pressure of trying to compete with a significantly better player.

Rick

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@Fourputt, not going to quote your text, but there’s a huge difference between giving strokes to someone needing 25 strokes from a 11 HC or so and a scratch giving a bogey 16 strokes. 

Bogey Golf is pretty solid playing so we shouldn’t be talking about it like they’re playing great one day then shooting 25 over the next. That’s not going to happen that often without some good reason.

 

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1 hour ago, Lihu said:

@Fourputt, not going to quote your text, but there’s a huge difference between giving strokes to someone needing 25 strokes from a 11 HC or so and a scratch giving a bogey 16 strokes. 

Bogey Golf is pretty solid playing so we shouldn’t be talking about it like they’re playing great one day then shooting 25 over the next. That’s not going to happen that often without some good reason.

 

What difference does it make?  You will still be giving or receiving strokes per the handicap system, which is designed to work under those conditions.  Your arguments, and Erik's, simply make no sense whatever to me.  I once shot 73 as a 17 handicap.  I also shot 104 as a 10 handicap.  On the same course, 2 years apart in the club championship.  Both were aberrations. 

I've never "cleaned up" as a bogey golfer in skins, that only happened when I was on top of my game.  I have had days since my game dropped back to bogey when I didn't get a single skin, and I had the same thing happen as a 9-10 cap.  I've played skins in the whole range, and I've played against players from 4 to 30 caps, in the same fourball.  Never seen a relationship to winning or losing as long as we all had honest handicaps playing our typical games.  When someone plays outside of his norm (better or worse, it happens both ways) , then you will get results that are outside of the mean.  

Rick

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3 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Your arguments, and Erik's, simply make no sense whatever to me.

They're not arguments. They're experiences.

Your experiences don't make much sense to me, either. In my experience, a single digit guy playing against three higher handicappers in a four-player skins game loses a lot more than he wins. Even at 3:1 that's a high enough ratio. One of them will typically par almost every hole.

In my experience.

And Lihu's. And just about everyone else but you who is commenting on handicaps in skins games…

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
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