pops4wood

Thanks for all the input.

By purposely not playing for your best score on an outside round, aren't you inflating your handicap? If someone is being open and honest about not trying to card their best score, then they shouldn't be posting that score. To me, that's no different than purposely missing putts after a match is over to inflate your score. Now, I understand it may be more fun for some to play like a riverboat gambler... But if the result is you blow up your round, i don't think you should be posting it.

What did I shoot? Myself... For teaching summer school instead of playing every day!!!

If I'm going to be honest with myself, I posted this with a bias that he had to be sandbagging. And I was just looking for people to back me up... I hear what PingDB is saying about being better at your home course, especially if you get to play it a few times a week. But this guy does not really play the club's home courses that much if at all (outside of club play). I have that course too.... And I rarely play it anymore... But if I play really well anywhere else I'm in the low 90s or sometimes high 80s.... If I play my home course, I'm pissed if I don't get it to 85 or less. All this talking has me jonesing to play....

Next club round is Sunday.... I'll check back in next week.

That's what our greens chairman wants to do... He wants some support though. So far in the only other one who wants to pursue it. I just broke down the numbers this morning. Let's see if others see the light. Thanks for all the responses.

Yeah the 2012 gap jumped out at me, but the first thing that raised an eyebrow was that not once in 5 years was the club avg differential the higher number... The closest is this year with a gap of 2.6. I don't want to be subtle about either... he's winning money at least 1/2 of the rounds he plays with us... to me that sandbagging turns into stealing.

Interesting. He plays a ton of different courses. A lot of them I don't know... some of the ones I do know are very tough courses. The courses we play... 2 tough, 1 average. I don't know the guy that well and rarely have been grouped with him. The round that made me even want to investigate was that he shot 7 strokes under his course index during a match... net 65 on a tough par 72 course. That got me wondering about what the odds are of shooting that low. Pope of Slope put it at 552 to 1.

We rotate 3 courses as our home course. All have pretty decent length. Since the statistical measure "differential" incorporates each course's slope rating, shouldn't that take care of course difficulty as a possible explanation?

Hello everybody... brand new here... I play in a local club and of course we think we have a problem with people inflating their handicap indices with rounds outside the club. The person in question over the last 5 years has played 208 rounds outside the club with an average differential of 17.7. He has 35 rounds within the club with an average differential of 12.5. The break down year by year is: 2011 (22 outside rounds, avg diff 18.1 vs. 6 club rounds, avg diff 12.0) 2012 (34 outside rounds, avg diff 21.2 vs. 5 club rounds, avg. diff 14.0) 2013 (61 outside rounds, avg diff 17.3 vs 7 club rounds, avg diff 13.7) 2014 (52 outside rounds, avg diff 17.6 vs 11 club rounds avg diff 11.1) 2015 (39 outside rounds, avg diff 15.4 vs 5 club rounds avg diff 12.8) I guess my question is this: Is there any other logical or plausible explanation other than sandbagging?

I have coached boys golf at my school for 10 years. I wouldn't worry about lack of instructional experience. You're a probably a teacher, which means you're probably underpaid... Meaning if you were good enough with the mechanics of golf swing to actually teach it? Well, you'd that full time and make more $$$$. The better players probably take lessons from teaching pros so you wouldn't want to mess with them anyway. The average to slightly below average guys you can usually help with little things like where the ball is in their stance or how open or closed their stance is. The awful kids? Just make it fun for them and tell them to keep practicing and try not to get frustrated. What you can teach them though is course management, proper etiquette (and rules), and not being a slow player. Teach them how to be a player that others would want to play with. One other area is putting. impress upon them the value of the two putt... Too many kids want to try to hole every putt. Which leads to many, many 3 putts... And sometimes worse. I guess that falls under course management... Have fun with it. Hopefully you get to play alongside the kids...