Golf Handicapping
Golfers who track their scores and belong to a group that provides the service have handicaps. Your handicap is a rating of how good you are, and is used in competions, so everyone plays on a more level field. The concept is if their are groups of competitors, you compete with others of your skill level and if you are competing with someone better or worse that you, it gives you a score adjustment you can use to make things more even.
Basically, the worst handicap you can have is a 36. The best is 0. So if your handicap is 15 and mine is 25 and we compete, you would give me 10 strokes to make things more even.
Among golfers who have this thing, you can tell how good someone is by asking what their handicap is. If they're a 4, for instance, you know they are very good. You want to look good, so you want your handicap to be low, but if you use it for competition (which is its only useful purpose), you want it to accurately reflect how good you are (or if you're cheating, you want it to be higher than your ability reflects). People who cheat and keep it higher than it should be are known as 'sandbaggers'. People who cheat and keep it lower than it should be are just stupid. Cheating in this endeavor isn't all that hard. Every time you play you're supposed to enter your score in a computer, and it keeps track of everything, including throwing in a factor for easier or harder golf courses (so scoring a 92 on a very hard golf course is better than the same score on a very easy course). Nothing prevents you from not entering particularly good or bad scores, or forces you to enter the correct score. It's just an integrity thing. You're expected to enter all scores and enter them correctly.
As a rule, really good golfers carry a handicap under 10. Golfers who are good and play frequently (like once a week or more) range in the 10 to 20 area, 20 to 30 and you're talking occasional golfers who go out for fun maybe once a month or so and above 30 you're talking about beginners, or just really bad golfers (and I have been among their ranks). This is how most golfers rate themselves and why they want a lower number. It's a bragging rights sort of thing.
So here's where it gets interesting. My handicap index is a lowly but honest 24.8. It's not great but it puts me squarely in average recreational golfer range. I play golf with with people who have lower (lower numbers, better handicaps) handicaps (mostly between 18 and 23) and I routinely score better than them. I played with two of them this weekend and at the end of the day, I was 5 strokes ahead of one and 11 ahead of the other. When I asked what that equated to in score, because they were keeping score, neither of them knew. They just shook their heads in disgust, because neither of them (or I) played particularly well. I can say this though. I can only assume neither of their scores will find a computer. I grabbed the scorecard when they were done and added mine up, because I wanted to enter it. After all, no matter how shitty, mine go in. So, if you aren't going to enter all of them, what's the point in having a handicap? It should reflect your game to some extent, and yeah, I suppose the computer, and everyone you tell, thinks you're better than you are, but all it takes it a walk down the fairway to find out different.
Basically, the worst handicap you can have is a 36. The best is 0. So if your handicap is 15 and mine is 25 and we compete, you would give me 10 strokes to make things more even.
Among golfers who have this thing, you can tell how good someone is by asking what their handicap is. If they're a 4, for instance, you know they are very good. You want to look good, so you want your handicap to be low, but if you use it for competition (which is its only useful purpose), you want it to accurately reflect how good you are (or if you're cheating, you want it to be higher than your ability reflects). People who cheat and keep it higher than it should be are known as 'sandbaggers'. People who cheat and keep it lower than it should be are just stupid. Cheating in this endeavor isn't all that hard. Every time you play you're supposed to enter your score in a computer, and it keeps track of everything, including throwing in a factor for easier or harder golf courses (so scoring a 92 on a very hard golf course is better than the same score on a very easy course). Nothing prevents you from not entering particularly good or bad scores, or forces you to enter the correct score. It's just an integrity thing. You're expected to enter all scores and enter them correctly.
As a rule, really good golfers carry a handicap under 10. Golfers who are good and play frequently (like once a week or more) range in the 10 to 20 area, 20 to 30 and you're talking occasional golfers who go out for fun maybe once a month or so and above 30 you're talking about beginners, or just really bad golfers (and I have been among their ranks). This is how most golfers rate themselves and why they want a lower number. It's a bragging rights sort of thing.
So here's where it gets interesting. My handicap index is a lowly but honest 24.8. It's not great but it puts me squarely in average recreational golfer range. I play golf with with people who have lower (lower numbers, better handicaps) handicaps (mostly between 18 and 23) and I routinely score better than them. I played with two of them this weekend and at the end of the day, I was 5 strokes ahead of one and 11 ahead of the other. When I asked what that equated to in score, because they were keeping score, neither of them knew. They just shook their heads in disgust, because neither of them (or I) played particularly well. I can say this though. I can only assume neither of their scores will find a computer. I grabbed the scorecard when they were done and added mine up, because I wanted to enter it. After all, no matter how shitty, mine go in. So, if you aren't going to enter all of them, what's the point in having a handicap? It should reflect your game to some extent, and yeah, I suppose the computer, and everyone you tell, thinks you're better than you are, but all it takes it a walk down the fairway to find out different.
John put this out here at 1:41 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for your blog post, now I understand what they're talking about once they mention 'bout their handiccap number.
It's interesting, because when they do talk about it, they expect everyone to know, so they never bother to explain what is the highest/lowest range. They just throw in "20" and me being absolutely blind just say "Oh, ok." without knowing whether it means "Oh that's great" or "Oh that's not so that great".
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