sacm3bill

That's true of course, but I think you know what I mean... If it had been all male contestants, you might think the best golfers were out early but the eventual winner could still proudly say they outlasted all the others in a series of fair fights. (Similar to many other single elimination tournaments like NCAA basketball - the best team might not make it all the way if they have one bad game, but the overall winner is still considered the winner.) If a female contestant wins on BB though, who knows if maybe she would've lost, or been eliminated a long time ago, if the arbitrary length advantage the women were given had been 5 (or 10 or 20 or whatever) yards less on every hole. I'm just saying that because of that, there will be an asterisk next to the win in a lot of people's minds. I saw that season - yeah that was cool, very generous of the producers... the guy who had lost got real emotional when he found out... And yeah, I was thinking they do the same thing tonight.

Here's what's interesting to me: Any of the equalizing techniques that have been or could be proposed (looking at what club is being used for the second shot, using average drive distances, etc.) could just as well be applied to two golfers of the same sex but of different length or other abilities. This never happens in professional tournaments of course, because we don't care who the best golfer is once length or some other ability has been somehow equalized to make it "fair" - we just want to know who the best golfer is. As rehmwa said, there's a handicap system in place to allow anyone to compete against anyone else, including men vs women, but BB isn't using handicaps - it's about finding the best golfer. But obviously, that's hard to do when men are competing against women, unless the women are given a length advantage. So, I understand that they have to do that, but by the same token, it's going to be hard to know if the winner was really the best golfer if they were playing from shorter distances. I think the only way to have a fair co-ed BB season is to have two-person man/woman teams. If a team loses, both contestants are gone. Whatever team wins it all, each player from that team gets the same prize.

As I see it there was bad behavior on both sides here. Bottlesflying brought up the topic, "Is it fair to have a man vs woman match if they play from different tees?" He may not have argued the point in a very eloquent fashion, but it is an interesting point. (How do you decide how much extra difference the man has to play, for example?) He was then accused of having a distorted sense of reality and of being a misogynist, so he played along and made several comments playing that role, which were taken seriously by several of you, which fanned the flames. Any chance we could start over and get back on topic?

Check out the link. Both the rating and slope are determined by taking the closest rated tees' rating and slope, then adjusting based on the difference in yardage.

According to http://www.usga.org/Rule-Books/Handicap-System-Manual/Rule-05/, section 5-2/g, you can post a score from unrated tees by just calculating the difference in yardage between the tees you played and the closest yardage for rated tees, then use the tables given to adjust the rating and slope. It's been claimed before on this site that the same method can be used if you bounce around between tees. Is that not true?

I think he's really Bagger Vance. Just don't mess with his uncle.

Everyone on both sides of this is making great points, but I really don't think there's a right answer. We're talking about subjective opinions. Re the part I bolded above for example, I do get jitters when I'm having a good round that could potentially drop my handicap significantly. I always have, and in fact for that reason I wasn't any more nervous when I was playing in tournaments. I consider myself a VERY competitive person, and part of that is reflected in all the time, energy, and emotion I put into trying to get better at golf. That is much more important to me than "winning" a match where someone had to give me strokes to make it competitive. I understand that you feel differently, but neither of us are going to have much luck convincing the other that one way of thinking is the "correct" way.

The round still might be one of the top 10 of the last 20, at some point over the course of your next 20 rounds. That means every stroke over those last 2 holes could still affect your handicap. But I agree, it's more fun if there's a competition going. That's why I still like negotiating strokes and playing match play when playing with friends, even though I don't enjoy playing handicapped tournaments.

There's no reason why he couldn't have said anything. Distance information is not illegal advice. I'm sure he was just thinking, "Yeah, there's something wrong with that guy's laser..."

With the peer review that comes with an official handicap, there's at least *someone* looking at what you're posting and making sure it's reasonable. If you end up always shooting much lower scores in tournaments they can adjust your handicap. If anything seems fishy at any time they can talk to you and get your story, or talk to people you've played with in social rounds or in tournaments and get theirs. The point being that one can't just enter anything they want and get away with it long term, if there is an actual human paying attention. In some handicap systems around the world you have to have someone actually play with you and sign your card for every score you turn in. In systems that don't require that, there at least has to be someone, or a group of someones, doing the best they can to keep everything as legitimate as possible.

It is 2 out of 3: Correct and self-calculated, but not "official" in the sense that I'm not currently a member of an official club/organization that tracks it. For my first few years I was, and entered my scores in the computer after every round. But after playing a couple tournaments I decided that, as good as the handicap system is, I don't like having to give or get strokes, and decided I wouldn't play in tournaments again unless I got good enough to play in the unhandicapped flights. So now I just track my handicap (and other stats) in a spreadsheet. I keep the handicap in my profile current for the most part, but only update it if it swings more than a stroke one way or the other from what it currently shows. (Although like GD, I'm more likely to update it if it moves 0.7 down than if it moves 0.9 up... )

It's from the Jon Lovitz "Liar Guy" skits from SNL - really big back in the day.

Kate Upton is the new Morgan Fairchild... Yeah, that's the ticket.

I agree, but it's funny though how many people I know who *must* watch sports live. Maybe they're afraid of spoilers?

Ah, that explains why Tiger is so hard on clubs - his deeply religious Buddhism.

I understand what the OP is saying, but I think anyone from the U.S. or a region similarly dominated by parkland style courses is going to have trouble appreciating the style of golf courses in Great Britain. The lack of trees or other features, brown spots, inability to discern fairway from green sometimes, are stapled of links style courses, as I understand it. Links courses are called that because they're built in the land that links the ocean/beaches to the farms and arable areas - by their nature, links courses look like they do. And because those are the types of courses that golf was first played on, I can understand the appeal of keeping that tradition. So again, I agree with the OP that those courses lack the aesthetics that parkland courses have, but I believe if I had the opportunity to play them I would learn to appreciate them.

HE is the rightful heir to the trophy, not the usurper Renly! I wonder if/how the members keep handicaps if they're only allowed to play that way? I guess they either need to play other courses, or there's a special handicap system they use for alternate-shot fourball.

Yep, those are the exact numbers I came up with as well. :-)

Depends on the how the word "cumulative" is being used, I think. I agree each group does not lose the sum of the the time each group ahead of them spends getting played through. But I also agree that each group loses more than just the time spent when they are getting played through. The amount is somewhere in between, which I've been describing using the word "cumulative". Which I think is correct because the definition is, "Formed by the accumulation of successive parts or elements" - i.e., not necessarily equal parts or elements.

Yep, hole description says 326, card says 315: http://www.bramptonparkgc.co.uk/pages.php/the-card.html/d503f2a2-847a-11e1-b768-bc305bd9eec9.html

And with a fairway wood, no less! I noticed that too, but I think the embedded caption is wrong - it says #17 but Badgers Alley (which is the picture attached) is actually #16. At 315 yards though, still an impressive tee shot.

I have experience with Wailea/Makena and Kaanapali, and second k-troops comments on those. I still would like to brave the wind and play Plantation someday. Btw, they have a great restaurant there on the course (Plantation House). I think I got some decent deals through golfnow, but in general it was hard to find discounts. I know there are other Hawaii/Maui threads here, I recommend a search if you haven't already. Have fun there!

Interesting.

Just noticed your little joke there. Well played sir.

You're not saying anything new. No matter how you slice it, whether you all hit off the tee or not, at some point the group has to let you go on ahead. That's five minutes you've added to their round, and as we've explained, it *is* cumulative.