Golf Forums - Handicaps

As I sit at work ignoring my boring pile of work, I have found myself perusing various TSGer's scores, this has shown me that we as a group tend to hit the 36 point marker more than the average suggests we should. In fact people now expect to hit that or feel they have had an average game, when "experts" say that you should obtain that mark in about 20% of your games. I wonder if The TSG system is to generous with our handicaps and whether players would be willing to see a exceptional play cut brought in for hitting 36 pts more than 3 times in ten games or any other suggestion. I realise I maybe opening a can of worms here but am interested to see if anyone feels they are playing to often in the safe zone of 35-38pts and never going down in hc.

 you are dead right,  if you score over 36 then your h/c should be cut, so all the tsg golfers have a h/c that is higher than it should be,  the sss should not apply to your score only the par score, so 37 or more means you would be cut, but as all the h/c are to high, then we all play the same system, so its not unfair, its just not correct, so we all have a h/c above what it would or should be,  some courses you can score 41 points and still not be cut, soit is hard to get your h/c to come down were it should be, I hear this said all the time   Roger you should be off 6  , but i am not  at the moment its 10, and yes its to high, but so is yours and everyones,  this has been talked about for years now ,hope we wont be still talking about this for years to come

 A ps,  just looked at my last 20 games ,  if i was cut scoring over 36 and going up scoring less than 34   my h/c now  would be  8.4

 That's sort of the point Roger, not having a pop at anyone in particular just that the system isn't forcing people to improve just letting them creep back up until they get comfortable and hit another big score and drop back to where they were. Would a more consistent cut make us strive for those extra gains, I'm not sure if it would but wanted people's thoughts to see if exceptional play cuts as a local club calls them would be welcomed.

 The problem with cuts outside of normal play, who going to make them!  in a club it is very differant to the tsg, there is a h/c sec,  etc, its there job if it is apprant  that a player is far better than his h/c, then he will be cut, but in the tsg all the h/c are to high, because of the system, it is different from how a club is run,  To put it right you need to change the system, because that is the problem,  so far its just you and me talking, lets hear from all of you out there,    what have anyone else got to say

 I've no suggestions or experience on how to change it Roger, if indeed change was for the better. In essence yes the computer says we are all playing with an inflated h/c but we are all playing g in the same competition so points/prizes must surely swings it roundabouts. 

 Hi, Martin,  what you say is true, its not unfair, but the  tsg is not run on the same system as  say a club, and it is because of this difference ,  it is only the tsg  which uses this system,  which makes everyones h/c higher than what it should be, which in turn makes it hard for us all to get our h/c down,  which was what this was about, see you tomorrow   

One thing you do need to watch is putting your scores in the right date order, otherwise interesting things happen.  It happened to me and I know I am not the only one, thus something to be careful of.

I wasn't advocating a committee Roger because they may not agree with me and in my world i'm always right :), I would be more direct and add a sub routine to the scoring system that looks at your last 10 games if you hit 36 or more 3 times it enforces an extra .5 cut. Ian would have to tell us if this was possible but it would take any arguments out of the equation. See if anyone else has a view.

Steve is always right. He told a group of us in Portugal so it has to be true. 

 Steve,  maybe everyone is happy with a higher h/c!!!!!  because there seems to be nobody who is jumping up and down about this,  as nobody is  making any comments. 

 I am confident there will be a lot of people who want to say something but make the decision not to. I do think Steve has made a great observation and suggestion. Remember it is simply that. As a club member and who puts all cards in - I know and appreciate the challenges. Let's embrace the forum for what it is. 

It's important to remember that stableford points are calculated against par for the course, whereas handicaps are calculated against SSS (or in qualifying comps, CSS) for the course.

I've been looking for a way to get down to 18 . . . .

TSG's is the only handicap I have and I would support changes that made it more accurate.

The TSG handicap calculation is exactly the same as the calculation a club would perform, using the same data (ie. your gross score, your playing handicap, and the course SSS/CSS).

The difference is that a club handicap adjustment can only be made after a score has been entered from a qualifying competition (eg a medal) which requires you to putt out (no gimmes) and hand in a score card signed by another member. 

The other difference is that the club may adjust the SSS for the competition conditions, eg. it might increase it by a stroke for poor weather.

My club handicap is 14, my TSG handicap is 12 and the reason for the difference is that public courses tend not to have very realistic SSS. Trent Park SSS is 68, South Herts is 72 but my scores at Trent Park are much more than 4 strokes better. 

 Exactly why I wouldn't join a TSG event....my handicap on TSG is kept lower than my club one (manually if need be). TSG handicap should be lower than reality as gimmes etc. And lack of full rule play but instead we have the annoyed TSGer if 40+ isn't scored. For me it means pp

Club handicaps are different....stroke play qualifying rounds are simple to calculate....number of stokes (+3 over par max  per hole and only 3 of them) vrs the SSS

However stableford at a club qualifying competition would have an SSS or buffer zone stableford for the day normally dictated by a middle range from the field. Any decent pro at any course should be able to tell you the days SSS which 99% will be as per card. Weather etc. should and would change this though.
My old club was par 71 SSS 70 and 32 33 34  points was often the buffer. 35 then started the cuts. However off the yellows in summer one comp 42 was the first cut. And a white tee day in strong wind saw 31 as first cut. 

You can easily "adjust" your score based on the SSS if you really wanted. 

I just wanna play golf :-)

We all just wanna have fun ..........