Is Stroking It at the Rapture the Key to Ascension?

In my infinite-part series of combating bad analysis based on a singular observation, we turn our attention to the Rapture. Darren has been convinced since the 2019 North Port Massacre that "teams with higher handicaps have an unfair advantage!" Sound familiar?

The entire premise is a bit ridiculous because so many factors go into how someone plays, regardless of their stroke situation. People get hungover, pulled over, bladder issues, relationship strife, swing changes, back pain, thigh rashes... it's a total crap-shoot. Not to mention the number of strokes received depends on your opponent(s). But if there is a bias, we have enough stats to figure it out.

I originally wanted to get the overall winning percentage of pairings/singles that received strokes. I could then break it down into the three formats (Four Ball, Chapman, Singles). I also wanted to see if a bias existed based on the number of strokes received (in total and per format).

Chapman and Singles formats are easy, since (usually) one team gets strokes and the other gets none. Four Ball is a little different as the low-player(s) play to scratch. So for that format, I used the total strokes for each pairing and adjusted the low-team down to zero.

Seven matches in Rapture history have been "straight-up," and all were thrown out as the results are irrelevant to this exercise. Only one of those seven was in Four Ball — a hilarious (on paper) 2018 contest where each side had a total of 22 strokes: Gary (3) & Gorecki (19) vs. Dave (0) & Danny (22). Four of the five "experts" who made picks went with Dave/Danny, so that tells you the overall Club sentiment. They won in a blow-out 6&4.

Of the remaining matches (77) that had strokes, the pairing that received strokes had a slight losing record: 34-36-7 (0.487). I drilled that down to tiers of strokes-received: 1-4 (40% of all matches), 5-8 (30%), 9+ (30%).

Right off the bat, it's safe to say there's no obvious advantage in the Rapture as a three day event. Even in the extreme case of a pairing receiving 15+ strokes, their record is only 5-3. Two of those involved a Four Ball team of Dave & Darren giving 16 and 17 strokes (they won one, lost one), so I can see where Darren formed his hypothesis after losing on the final hole to Adam & Geoff last year.

But what about a format-related bias? Is the creation of "Super Stroker" pairings (which I'm fond of) the way to go in Four Ball and/or Chapman?

The first thing of note is the sample size of "format-specific data by strokes received" is pretty small. But here are a few conjectures:

Four Ball - This seems to be a format where higher handicappers can shine. Match Play not only ignores their blow-ups, but they can also be saved on those holes by their partners. Of the 6 active Members with winning Four Ball records, four of them have indexes above the Club median: Danny, Brendan, Geoff, Darren.

Chapman - There's a mixed bag here because of the 60/40 allowance. You need two high handicaps together to get any meaningful strokes. JW and Gorecki have been paired together 3 times, only winning once. Overall, it feels like bad players can really hurt good players in this format.

Singles - This is the most important format, as it accounts for 50% of the total points each year. Only JW and Geoff have winning Rapture Singles records and have historic indexes higher than 16.

All of this should result in a fairly even 3-day exhibition. Bad golfers can contribute in Four Ball... potentially drag their team down in Chapman... and definitely aren't getting an advantage in Singles. Without an obvious overall bias, there's only one conclusion we can make about the 2019 Rapture: Chandler is the greatest Captain of all time.