Golf Forums - Handicap - Cranham

Festive Question for you.

After a number of chats with two very different level of golfers and both agree and do not use any Cranham scores to there handicap due to the course having very little trouble with not much as in OB ( i see a guy hook a ball so bad he wan on a fairway that was two holes up, he then creamed a second and walked off with Par)..... So on that note i thought id look to see what happend if i removed Cranham. It moved me from 16.4 to 18.2......

BIG QUESTION:

Does that make me a cheat if i dont put it back?

Andy

 Hi Andy,
If thats considered cheating then I am a cheat as well as I do not record any of my scores for Seaford Head as like you it has wide fairway hardly any bunker, what there is are all in the wrong places.

Just on another note( not trying to hi-jack your post) but the other day when discussing h/c i was told that if you have the right H/cap you should only expect to play to it or better it once or twice a year, has anyone heard of this before?, If it right I din't know why I have been busting a gut trying to play to mine all the time.

Yes Roger, heard that about only achieving your handicap once or twice a year. As to what I include, on this site I include EVERY game (excluding matchplay) I play wherever it is and if it drops my handicap it will balance out in the longer term. If you play a round, it should be included.

jb

Hi Roger,

Yes, this is a term I have often heard used but I don't agree with it.

Firstly, club handicaps are taken from off the whites, only counted if it is part of a club/Medal comp and can be subject to the mood of the commitee?!

Secondly, if you only play to this twice a year, than how can this be reflective of your game?!

Thirdly (I am on a roll), of all the TSGers I know that belong to clubs, it would seem their handicaps are wayyyyy higher than their TSG handicap, so how can that be reflective of their standard of play?

Andy - with regards to your handicap, whilst I am sympathic, the course SSS at Cranham should be reflective of the difficulty of the course according to CONGU rules/evaluation. In this case, it is Par 67 with an SSS 66. Therefore, I am inclined to agree with JB and think it should be included in your handicap calculations, otherwsie it could be said your handicap is artificially high!

But knowing you as I do, I do not think the word 'cheat' should be used here, if you were cheating you wouldn't have posted this thread!

Regards

Ian M

 I do know a TSG member who plays Cranham quite often but never posts his score there has he got a falsely high handicap?

 Intrestingly I have included my rounds for Seaford this year and it has only reduced my h/c by .3 although not all my rounds have been recorded.
so i guess it does equal its self out over the year.

I have played cranham so many times in the past as i lived round the corner, and i have never used my scores for H/C as if this was my home course then my H/C would be about 2/4 at most,, i have shot 64 a few times and under 70 so many times that if i am over 70 i feel i have not played well, so my point is this its so easy that its not a true test of golf, at what point do you say its to short, do you count a par 3 course no if the sss was much lower like epping is then maybe OK, but its not so were do you draw the line its is a course that is good for beginners  and you do need this type for them, as its more fun if you can score well, but if you play this to often then your H/C would be wrong, just the same is true if you play hard courses to much as i have been doing, vila sol is a 100 times more difficult then cranham and asmy H/C has gone up to 10.4, so maybe this is now to high for easy courses back here!! so this,  does not work as well. which is my point H/Cs do not always work if they did we would all score 36 points every time, but we do get better or worse as the case maybe  from day to day it can never be exact ,  this will only happen if the UK start to use the slope system as do much of the world, were your H/C goes up or down on every course but until this day comes then we will never come close to getting it right so what i am saying is yes or no there is no correct anwser to this , happy new year to all   roger Ireland
 

The short answer to this is that the SSS for Cranham Golf Course is wrong.    The course is only 4861 yards off the yellow tees - Par 67, SSS 66.   This means that your handicap will reduce if you score 38pts or more. 

CONGU tables for Provisional Standard Scratch Scores show that a course of this length should have an SSS of 63, not taking account of course difficulty - so it's likely that Cranham's true SSS should be around 60 or 61.

Roger A mentions Seaford Head GC ..... 5622 yds, Par 71, SSS 66 (yellow) ..... he would have to score 42 pts for a handicap reduction.

Roger I highlights how easy Cranham is by regularly shooting under 70, or sub-par occasionally, so rightly doesn't include these for handicap calculation.

Andy - until the SSS is re-assessed, I think you're right to exclude Cranham GC ....... but for anyone making New Year Resolutions to reduce their handicap in 2013, I would suggest that playing several rounds there would be an easy way to achieve that goal ..... Happy New Year to all !!!

When can you score 41pionts and not get cut?
Epping i did it today!!!!!

Well done Roger, that just goes to show the inexactitude of the system we use.......... love it or hate it, it is the same for everyone. Now if only the EGA could be persuaded to use SLOPE...............

....just thought the thread needed a grenade thrown in

 Well the votes in, staying off!!

Well it was nice to see some activitiy and good debate.

Happy new year all.