DaveP043

21st: Virginia - 15.8 So I'm currently up to 9.1, I guess I'm better than average, but my play hasn't felt particularly good. Ah well, a little break and then a new season.

Leaving the tee without hitting a Provisional is dumb. Choosing not to utilize MLR E-5 (alternative relief for ball lost or OB) in casual play is dumb. But allowing a designer or committee to choose to make specific areas (i.e. off the defined playing area) subject to a more severe penalty (stroke and distance) as compared to other areas on the golf course is reasonable. Having a graduated hierarchy of penalties for different results is reasonable. The change in the treatment of a ball moved accidentally on the putting green was very reasonable, given the changes in golf course conditions. To be honest, the more I've learned about the Rules of Golf and their evolution, the more respect I have for the people who write and refine them.

I never got the impression you were doing anything wrong, you were just interested in keeping stats over the winter. Hahahaha, when I saw your location I figured you hadn't run into inactive seasons very often. I'm in an odd location, in Virginia we have year-round posting, but no more than 15 miles away the folks playing in Maryland stop posting their home rounds on December 1. But if they come over the river to Virginia, they DO post the scores.

This isn't what I'd term a "normal down period", Some states have portions of the year during which scores are not allowed to be posted. You can find these Inactive periods here: https://www.usga.org/handicapping-articles/handicap-active-and-inactive-season-schedule-25489.html GHIN has this programmed into the system, so if you select a course in a state during a "dormant" period, you will not be allowed to post a score. A local admin cannot override that. You wouldn't be able to retroactively post them either. The only way to override this would be to post the scores without identifying a course and location, manually entering the CR and Slope, but that would really be against the rules. See Handicapping Rule 2.1, final bullet point. For folks in those more northern areas, if they travel to Key West and play golf in January, then SHOULD post those scores for handicap, even though its an Inactive Period at home.

Now we're getting a little into the weeds, but if they're playing at your club through the winter, your handicap admin (maybe your pro) can add them to your club's roster, yet allow them to maintain another club as their "primary" club. Once they've been added, you should be able to access their posting record pretty easily through GHIN. I'm pretty sure that any handicap modifications must be done through the primary club.

I believe the club or Committee defines that, along with hole and tee sets for by hybrid combinations. The ratings team needs to get all of the applicable measurements, so if they don't do the "mens measurements" from the red tees while on site, for example, they may not be able to provide a mens rating. All of the measurements for each hole are maintained at the state or regional association, so hybrid tee ratings can be done without a new site visit.

The CR and Slope for every set of tees for every course in the US are available here: https://ncrdb.usga.org/ For each rated set of tees they show the Course (scratch) and Bogey ratings, the Slope, and the breakdown for each nine. Each set of tees can be rated for both men and for women. At my home club we have ratings from every tee for both, and although not every single rating is shown on the scorecard they are available in the GHIN app for posting.

I was writing when @storm319 posted the accurate information. For some reason statements like this turn me off. The penalty for OB has very legitimate reasons, although not accepted by all. The one-ball (model local) rule is used only for very high-level competitions, so legitimately doesn't apply to most of us. Gimmes are absolutely allowed for match play, and very appropriately NOT allowed for stroke play. Not one of these Rules is "silly", but calling them silly impacts my opinion of the writer. So does posting incorrect information, in a transparent attempt to generate traffic for a website. It's lazy journalism.

That's possible. However, the way the handicap system works, if you always play from the blue tees, your best-8 net scores will be right around par. If you always play the red tees (if they're rated for men), your best88 net scores will be right around par. Yeah, there are a few factors in this. First, there are more players in that 12-18 range, so more of the winnings will go to those in that group. I've read studies that have found that prize money paid to groups, in general, is proportional to the groups' representation in the field. The other part of this is that in general higher handicaps have a wider dispersion in scores. Its much more likely that an 18-handicapper will shoot -3 net than an 8. So a dang good round by you will often lose to a dang good round by a higher handicapper. I don't know exactly what formats you play, and how big your field is, but you might suggest to the league organizers that they use the Handicap Allowances presented in Appendix C of the Handicapping Rules: https://www.usga.org/handicapping/roh/2020-rules-of-handicapping.html For most formats they recommend using something less than full handicap. They had access to millions of rounds to analyze when they developed these recommendations, with the goal of making the competitions more fair for all players.

This is interesting to me as well, although I'm not one of those "would be rebels". There are a small number of balls that claim to be non-conforming, it might be interesting to see these tested alongside currently conforming balls.

In a system intended to be as all-encompassing as the handicap system, its impossible to make it work exactly the same for all players. For some, a decrease in distance will have a huge effect on scores, much larger than the difference in CR and Slope can predict, for others it will have no effect. Some players might game the system by establishing their handicap primarily from one set of tees, and playing in competitions from another. But as long as they're competing from the tees they play most of their golf from, the system should normalize their scores to par. This makes me wonder if these guys are some of those who really benefit from shorter tees, whose scores are a lot lower than the difference in ratings can predict. Maybe the CR is 2 strokes lower, but these guys benefit so much from the decreased distance so they're actually scoring 4 strokes better. It will take a while before their scores normalize, before their handicap is based only on scores from those shorter tees. In the meantime, they may indeed be scoring better than than their handicap would indicate.

Gotcha. As I mentioned, the official recommendation is to take 35% of the low and 15% of the high for a scramble. Fourball stroke play should be 85%, fourball match play at 90%. They do suggest that for small fields the handicaps shouldn't be reduced as much, perhaps 90 or 95% would be appropriate for fourball stroke play. For match play, the low handicapper gets no strokes, and the rest get the difference. None of these are requirements, just suggestions based on analysis of millions of rounds of posted scores. Again, this is all presented in Appendix C to the Handicapping Rules. You're free to do whatever you choose, but those recommendations are a good starting point.

What format do you play? That 60/40 calculation is recommended for a couple forms of play, Greensomes and Pinehurst/Chapman. You can refer to Section 9B in Committee Procedures in the Rules of Golf for outlines of those formats, but in neither one do you play your own ball for the entire hole. I only ask because some PGA of America professionals aren't all that knowledgeable about Handicapping, or even about the Rules in general.

I should have caught this, the 0.96 multiplier was removed when the WHS went into effect almost 4 years ago. There are still some differences among different parts of the world, in Australia they calculate your Playing Handicap using a 0.93 multiplier. The best thing to do is to refer to the actual Handicapping Rules, which you can find here for USGA areas: https://www.usga.org/handicapping/roh/2020-rules-of-handicapping.html In Appendix C you'll find that the recommended formula is to take 35% of the lower handicapper and 15% of the high handicapper. So first you calculate each players Course Handicap, then their Playing Handicap, and then use the formula to calculate the Scramble team's handicap. No, for 9 holes you use the 35/15 formula to get an 18-hole handicap, and take half of it for a 9-hole event. You should check with the folks who run competitions at that course. Most of them will require you to have an official handicap. The handicap system relies to a large extent on peer review, with a Handicap Committee which can review posting records for each player. They don't have the required level of access if you're using one of the private (unofficial) systems.

If I remember right, you can add family members to a single serial number, a single account. As you say, its probably in the FAQ somewhere.

I'd be happy to do that. I'll need the score, plus the course rating and slope for the tees you played. If you need help figuring that out, I can help there too.

And as long as you're not in a competition, bogey golf is accurate enough. I've been playing comps of one kind or another for more than 30 years, and serve as the Handicap Chair at my home club, I've managed to learn quite a bit about the system, and @Jnoble89 has provided a pretty good overview. If you have more questions, I'm sure he'll be happy to help, I will as well.

I am not an adaptive golfer, but I've been aware of the abilities of these kinds of players close to 30 years ago. The son of my club's head pro won the world one-armed golf championship for two years running back in 1993 and 1994. Obviously not all players are at that level of ability, I still admire the perseverance of these players. My wife was a volunteer for the 2023 USGA Adaptive Open at Pinehurst, and was impressed both by the golf ability and the attitudes of all the competitors. I imagine we'll both volunteer when the tournament comes to Woodmont CC in 2025 and 2026 in Maryland. For @scolist, welcome to golf, for @MIgowfer59 welcome back to golf, best of luck going forward!.

I think its really unlikely that the manufacturers and/or tours will choose to depart from the USGA/R&A. What's their motivation, do they make more money if they do? Pro golf will look virtually the same, why would they choose to make their own rules, and take the heat from every member who gets an "unfair" penalty? Manufacturers will sell the same number of balls, they'll just have a one-time expense to adapt to the new test method. I have to believe that they've already started looking at adapting to the new test method so they'll be ready to submit conforming balls in 4 years. Sure, their PR flacks are telling us that they HATE the reduction, they don't want to be the bad guys in the eyes of the public (i.e their customers), but it really won't impact them significantly. Someone mentioned the possibility of the Saudis setting up and running their own "golfing authority". To me that's the only possibility, because the Saudis don't need to make any money. They could choose to set up their own golf ball brand. Would their authority get followers, would enough people buy balls made with "blood money" to make it significant? I don't know, but I'll be surprised if it happens.

I don't know, I'll accept the relative consistency of conforming balls, as compared to the much more random behaviors of found and recycled balls. But you be you, good luck. The thing that comes to mind is the formation of the PGA Tour, as a separate entity from the PGA of America, but that was back in the Palmer and Nicklaus era. Occasionally I hear a Tour pro complaining about the rules, even saying "we should have our own rules", but I don't think the Tour has ever seriously looked at doing that.

No, I believe the new test procedures will go into effect. There are only so many cycles of proposal/comment that make any sense. Its all been said, opinions have been heard, and a decision has been reached.

I haven't seen that with mine. I bought a pre-owned iPad for this review, and the only issue I've had is that occasionally the voice recognition doesn't work properly. I'm pretty sure that's an issue with the hardware, and not the app.

After all of this, I wonder what the group thinks is likely to happen. We've seen reports released over the past few years, intended subjects for further study, proposed MLR plan, and finally an actual course of action. At every single stage that Ruling Bodies have solicited feedback from everyone involved. Does anyone think that the hue and cry over the final decision will send the Ruling Bodies back to the drawing board? Will they re-start the cycle of proposal, feedback, and decision? My best guess, this is going to happen. No entity wants the responsibility of governing, nobody will "replace" the USGA and/or R&A. Manufacturers will research and produce balls to fit the revised testing procedures. And we'll all adjust. And I hope we'll all remain friends, Marry Christmas to all!

Beginning in 2030, balls not meeting the new criteria will no longer be allowed. This won't be a local rule, it will be a rule of golf. I just don't believe major manufacturers will continue us to make both conforming and nonconforming balls. Look at how vehemently the opposed bifurcation, at being forced to make two different balls. They're pretty dang unlikely to do that voluntarily.

In at least some of those countries, you're not allowed to simply post your score for handicap, it MUST be attested. Many US golfers hate that idea as well, seem to hate the idea of any kind of formal oversight, but it significantly decreases the opportunity to intentionally sandbag handicaps.