There was some comments about Melberg's impressive 75 (gross) on Sunday, and him finishing 2nd place. It's easy to believe that low handicaps can't win on TOUR, but is that really the case?
Maybe.
Dan, Buffalo Ben, and Greg didn't play regularly enough during their short Club membership, so I'm not sure we can look to their records.
In the seasons where Dave played in at least 6 events, he finished: 5th, 10th, 9th, 4th, 12th, 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 6th, 8th. That's 50% in the top 5 final standings, and three (3) of those he missed winning the season by less than 500 points.
In Club history, we've had 21 rounds recorded of +4 (gross) or better. Of those, 12 (57%) won the event. Four of them finished 2nd, and five of them were 3rd or worse:
What sticks out to me is the list of courses where this has happened. Westchase is difficult, and Dave barely lost to a couple of great rounds by Adam and Moostie. Dave's runner-up at Hernando Oaks (which can be difficult) was to Darren who shot 82 (gross). Nobody is ever going to beat that.
Melberg finishing 8th at The Groves is insane (Dave won that round at +1 gross).
The ChampionsGate CC tournament is infamous for many reasons. We haven't played that course since, and we probably should. It'll just get Tall Mike one step closer to his 5th Cup.
You and I have talked about this recently. I'm not sure skill is rewarded enough in our league. I'm not sure how you resolve it though.
ReplyDeleteYeah... and I don't agree with you.
ReplyDeleteA single-digit handicap shooting a 75 isn't necessarily better than you (Darren) shooting an 82.
What you do to "resolve" this would be to put a handicap allowance on Stroke Play like we do with Match Play. Right now our allowance is 100%, which is the USGA recommendation for 20 players. If we had fields of 30+, they recommend allowing 95%, which takes more strokes away from higher handicaps.
The extreme would be making it 0%, and just playing straight-up. Pretty sure nobody wants to do that.
Maybe the winter season can be the season of testing?
ReplyDeleteTesting a no gimmie rule (putt it all out), no max rule, and a 90% handicap allowance. Yes it would probably mean more pitchers, but would also allow higher skill players a better chance?
That’s gonna be a no for me, dog
ReplyDeleteYou could also give the sub 8, sub 9 or sub 10 handicaps (whatever cut off is deemed appropriate) something like 110% of their handicap for calculating the number of strokes that person gets in a specific tournament against the rest of the field.
ReplyDeleteI think you would get less push back doing something like this because you wouldn't be "taking" strokes away from any of the higher handicaps.
I haven’t won in my last 36 starts. It’s because I haven’t played at or slightly above my potential in an event where others did. That’s how sports work, especially golf.
ReplyDeleteThis is another example of something that isn't broken. Anyway...
ReplyDelete- I don't think making an arbitrary cut-off point for bonus strokes is sound math.
- The handicap allowance method is recommended by the USGA, used by clubs all over the world, and literally the easiest and most fair way to reward more "skill," if we even wanted to do that.
- We're definitely not going to crown an official champion or affect historical stats, world rankings, rapture qualifications etc etc... on a season where we "test" random rule changes.
The USGA's own actions in revising how handicaps are calculated and recommending a 95% allowance in 30+ person fields demonstrates that their system is admittedly flawed. I see no reason why the Board should not at least discuss measures that might lead to a more equal playing field since that is what handicaps are designed to do in the first place. Ultimately, if the Board cannot improve on the USGA handicap system, then so be it. I understand that keeping the status quo is an important element in retaining authoritarian control. However, I beg of you Dear Leader to consider poor Melberg and Dave and the punishment they receive week in and week out just because they are so much better at golf than the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteYeah these high handicappers are ruining the league! I’m so sick of Danny, Brendan, Katie, Troy, Geoff, and JW winning all the tournaments. Lol
ReplyDeleteEverything will be discussed. Remember... my comments on here are transparency. Not official rulings. I got some math coming your way in a few minutes.
ReplyDeleteI also don't see how the USGA recommendation is flawed. What they're saying is... in large events (30+), you need to mitigate the random high handicapper who is probably sandbagging shooting a crazy low net score.
Perceived Problem: Melberg shot at 75 and didn't win a tournament! It's unfair to "skilled" golfers! Something must be done!
ReplyDeleteSomething: The handicap allowance would need to be 76% (lower than we set it for Match Play!) for Melberg's 75 at Esplanade to TIE Moostie for the victory.
Consequence: If we set the entire SEASON at 76% allowance, Tall Mike STILL wins the season, but by 43 points over Dave who wouldn't have left the country. The rest of the standings are: Chandler, Casey, Faz, Melberg. You FINALLY get to Gorecki at 7th place. Then: Darren, Ho, Gary, JW... etc the rest of you sucked so who cares.
Conclusion: Deciding that something isn't fair based on one result (Melberg finishing 2nd with a gross 75) is idiotic. Just using that threshold ejects every high handicapper on the season. Gorecki's magical year would have been a giant fart noise. He still would have won at Lake Jovita but would have finished 4th at Countryside and Lakewood National (his other two victories).
Predictable Response: Well obviously 76% allowance is too harsh. What happens if it was 95%?
Obvious Answer: Moostie would have won the season by more than he did. Gorecki wouldn't have 3 wins. You'd have to pick another season where someone like Dave barely lost to see any real impact. Either way... to Brendan's point... how in the world are people saying high handicappers win too often?
It would appear to me as self-evident that a system without flaws would not need a 5% adjustment once a field goes from 29 players to 30 players. Both the size of the adjustment (5%) and the number of players in a field when the adjustment is to be taken (30) also appear to me to be arbitrary.
ReplyDeleteYou point out the flaw of using one tournament to demonstrate an unfair bias toward high handicappers and then turn around and use one season to try to demonstrate there is no bias? While the 2020 summer champion would not have changed, the next five spots would have been filled with golfers with lower handicaps. If we looked back over more than one season, we might see a similar trend toward lower handicap players finishing higher in the standings. In fact, Tall Mike's 2020 championship might become an outlier.
Ultimately, I would like to see something done because my handicap is getting really, really high. I can just see a run of dominance that hasn't been seen since the days of Katie joining the league or Darren the Baron winning tournament after tournament like Tiger in his prime. I seek to avoid the complaining that will undoubtedly follow my historic run.
This is a post with no real study behind it besides looking at handicaps for approximately 30 seconds, but how are people like tall mike and gorecki winning tournament after tournament and always finishing high in the tournaments yet tall mike (for examples) is now at the same handicap as when he started the season (16.9 March 1 and not 16.9 again)... is he just foot at tournaments and sucks when playing with friends in a non-tournament round? Maybe we look into weighing tournaments rounds when it comes to handicap purposes. I’ll be the first to admit I know very little about the handicapping system and USGA but when the same people are near the top every year it begs the question of if there is something wrong in the system
ReplyDeleteTyping with a cell phone sucks while trying to work... lots of typos that I can’t edit but you get the idea
ReplyDeleteYeah tweaking the calculation of the Handicap Index isn't something we can/should do. At some point we'll be in the USGA World Handicap database and it'll be completely out of our hands. That's why you're supposed to only tweak the "handicap allowance."
ReplyDeleteThink of the "handicap allowance" as the setting used in some video games. For instance, Mario Kart has a subtle player assist system. If you're in last place, your driver is going to be slightly faster, and all the power-ups you get are awesome (red and blue shells).
Right now we have that setting turned "on" (100%). We could turn it "off" (0%), or just ever-so-slightly lower it (95%) to give less of a boost to the fools who are slow.
I did imply that my Summer 2020 season was a one-off example, and that using one where Dave barely lost the Cup might be better. But then we're still forcing a result arbitrary. Basically... someone tell me a time when a player didn't win a tournament (or a season)... and you feel they should have.
To me, it's never happened. Every result at 100% allowance has been fair in my mind.
I would be willing to bet that golfers with a median score based on their last 20 rounds close to their handicap index tend to do better over the course of a season or seasons in our league than golfers that have a large gap between their median score and their handicap index. A few rounds in the 70's and low 80's can screw over a golfer that shoots in the low 90's the majority of the time.
ReplyDeleteYour handicap is based on the best 8 scores in your last 20 rounds. If you have the ability to go "low" every once in awhile, it can drastically reduce your handicap index.
Also don't discount WHERE we played contributing to Moostie and Gorecki "winning tournament after tournament." That was part of my original post.
ReplyDeleteWe played a LOT of courses that are wide off the tee (Moostie finish / Gorecki finish):
Southern Hills (1 / 5)
Grasslands (5 / 4)
Lakewood National (4 / 1)
Lake Jovita North (9 / 1)
Esplanade (1 / 6)
Whereas "tighter" courses were more difficult for them:
Waterlefe (5 / 14)
The Groves (16 / 12)
Cheval (1 / 10)
I think I’m a victim of Brian’s theory. Considering the last 20 rounds (no par 3 courses) moostie and I are basically the same for scoring average yet he gets 3 strokes on me. His range was from 83-103 and my range was from 79-106. I’m not worried though. My new 3 and 5 wood should change things up next season and I will continue to try and drive everything even though my distance has been dropping. Good or in the woods.
ReplyDeleteThe handicap system makes it fun for golfers of all skill levels to compete. If you are looking for stringent golf competition, get your handicap low enough to compete in FSGA events. If you're looking for a fun league with friends, this is what we have. These handicaps are well earned for the most part. There may be some underreporting on the good side and the bad side. I tend to throw out a round I don't want to see on my scores. Some folks just don't bother to report good scores during non-club events.
ReplyDeleteI like the discussion. I like being on the board because we talk about all kinds of hypotheticals at the meetings and I try to represent the high handicapper and the family man club member. I'm the only one of both on the board. For now. Could change with voting, could change with Big John...
Maybe the low handicappers should just play better golf.
ReplyDeleteWait for it.....#playbetter
ReplyDelete