Scorekeeper
1) This scheme allows a player to cheat the system by intentionally scoring high in some rounds, thus padding the handicap, or even by purposely scoring exhorbitant scores on the last few holes of each round, after the bets have been settled.
2) The simple plan of using the average over par is accurate only if the players have established their averages on the same course, or the same set of courses in the same proportion.
3) A better scheme is necessary so that the superior player retains a small but definite advantage. "You dont get full credit for how bad you are" is an objective that is behind all the innovations in the USGA handicap method.
Equitable Stroke Control (ESC) prevents a player from benefitting by shooting 12's on the last few holes, by providing that before submitting a round for handicap, a player changes all higher scores to "7". (This "7" rule is almost accurate, but the max score per hole varies a bit according to handicap.)
The par on particular holes, and thus particular courses, varies from the norm, so an adjusted "par" called Course Rating is established to normalize scores shot at different courses. Course rating is based more upon distances than difficulty, although both attributes are considered.
The latest equilizer that the USGA added to the scheme is Slope Rating, whose purpose is to factor in how severely the particular course penalizes the inferior golfer.
Now is the time we apply the Slope Rating, and here is how: You multiply the Differential by 113, then divide the result by the Slope Rating.
Baynes Creek has been assigned a Slope Rating of 118 (indicating it is above average in difficulty).
When you are ready to calculate your handicap, your first select your last 20 rounds, and discard the others to history.
Now, sort those 20 rounds by the Differential. Keep the rounds with the 10 lowest differentials, and throw out the 10 rounds with highest differentials. You do not get credit for your worst rounds, only your best.
Take the average of those 10 lowest rounds. Do not round off, always simply lose all digits to the right of the tenths place. Always err in favor of a lower handicap.
Finally, multiply that average by .96
Why? Because still again, you do not get full credit for how bad your are. While we are trying to level the playing field, no factor can ever be allowed to disadvantage the better golfer.
The Scratch Golfer can hit driver an average of 250 yards, and has the distance to reach a 470-yard green in two shots. He will usually score in the neighborhood of par.
The Bogie Golfer can hit driver an average of 200 yards, and has the distance to reach a 370-yard green in two shots. He will usually score about 18 over par.
The definitions of these two ideal golfers will hold true on courses of moderate difficulty, but on very easy courses, the difference between their scores will be smaller. The Scratch Golfer may win by only 15 or 12 or less on the easier courses. (Picture a course where each hole is only 2 feet in length. This is the world's easiest course, and certainly the Bogie Golfer will not need any handicap strokes at all.) On the more difficult courses, the differential between the two golfers can increase to far more than the usual 18 strokes.
When the USGA set out to level out the differences in difficulty between courses, the first thing they did was to draw some graphs:
The slope of that line, once determined by the observation of tens of thousands of actual rounds of golf, is normalized to 113 (why not 100? I believe the USGA did not want to stigmatize courses that are a little easier than average...they are still above 100.)
A Slope Handicap does not give the golfer an absolute handicap. It provides an Index, which references the Slope Rating of a course in order to determine your Course Handicap at that venue. Your handicap will be higher on more difficult courses, and lower on easier courses.
It is fair to mention that you dont need to take a calculator to the course. All USGA-approved courses post a chart that correlates your Handicap index to your Course Handicap. But arent you happier now that you know how to produce the chart?
But there is another point of view to be considered: The ESC chart above reflects a formula, but it does not tell the whole story when it comes to the handicaps that we earn playing Links golf. Extending this formula to a handicap of -10, the maximum score per hole would be par!
A much deeper problem exists with very low scores. The top PGA Pro golfers IRL, Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson...those guys have NEGATIVE handicaps. Meaning, they subtract a NEGATIVE number from their gross score, to get their net score, in effect ADDING strokes. I can imagine playing vs Tiger at Baynes Creek: I would subtract strokes from my score, he would add strokes to his. Even so, I would need 3 gotchas and 5 wedgies to have a chance.
I'm sorry for digressing. The point is, if a golfer has a handicap that is slightly negative, like -1 or -2, the system still works reasonably well. But at GolfCabal we are going to have handicaps of -9 and even lower. And the problem that arises is this: Remember our theoretical Scratch Golfer and Bogie Golfer? Well, nice guys that they are, they are completely irrelevant to Links golf. Excuse me, their RELATIONSHIP is irrelevant. The Scratch Golfer still matters, but now he is the INFERIOR golfer. For Slope Ratings to be truly pertinent in Links golf, they would relate the performance of the Scratch Golfer to the Stellar Golfer, or the MesoMorph Golfer. And that, on a Links course, with Links yardages at issue.
Equally troubling is that we currently use the Course Rating and the Slope Rating of the IRL Prototype courses in calculating our handicaps, and there is no assurance that IRL difficulty tracks at all with sim difficulty. Considering a pair of courses, the one that is easier IRL might be more difficult in Links.
The reason for the "best 10 of the last 20 rounds"...the reason it is 20 rounds and not 4 or 8, is because the handicap should reflect average performance over a long period of time. The USGA actually offers smaller versions of the same scheme, and this is the other USGA schema that GolfCabal has opted out of, because we play far more rounds than the outdoor golfers do. In the best years of my life, I played golf 3 times per week, usually shooting about 72 holes. Most GolfCabal golfers play 8 rounds or more in an off week! GolfCabal will not begin handicapping a golfer until he has played at least 20 rounds, and handicaps will not be re-calculated during a tournament. New handicaps are calculated once per week, and the same handicap will apply to all four rounds of a player's tournament.
We are initially using a very compliant USGA system of handicapping, but at the same time we will be tracking our actual performance on all courses, including APCD original courses for which there is no IRL prototype. We will also collect scores from other web sim sites, and we will include course conditions into our calculations, to judge their impact. This additional information will prove to be of increasing interest as the database growths through time, and will help us all discover where our games need the most work. Gathering this info will finally allow us to calculate Course Ratings and Slope Ratings that will truly level the playing field by offering a handicapping structure that is far more pertinent to Links golfers. Did you ever notice that when USGA handicaps are used in Links, the winning handicap score is often well over par? Did you ever notice that the better players tend to win handicap events rarely or not at all? These are strong indicators that the handicaps systems that have been used are not accurate.
To repeat: The handicap system currently in place on The Golf Connection is a strongly USGA-like engine, and it utilizes the Course Rating and Slope Rating of the IRL Prototype courses. Later, we will begin to also display net scoring results of an exciting new handicap system more pertinent than USGA to computer simulation golf.