The greed of some "golfers".....

gary29428

Was playing in an Am-Am the other week and it was won with 107pts with two to count on each hole. Was a very tuf day on a tuf course, second was 93pts. So these guys that won it have won this particular comp 3 times in 4 years. One of them got cut 2.5 by there club last year on GP and is again out to the same h'cap. Think about there score, they had 17 six pointers... there h'caps range from 17 to 25. As a low single figure golfer this gets right up my hole. It's bulls**t to constantly put in bad scores to boost your h'cap only to come out in these Am-Am's and shot the lights and pick up what are in most cases very valuable prices. This has stirred a right bit of uproar in the area. The organisers are sick to there stomacks of these gobs**ts, it's the comp that will suffer (it's for charity) as a lot of people I've spoken to will not play it again. Is there a way to exclude certain people from an Am-Am, to simply tell them they can't play....p*ss off.

death1234567

gary29428 wrote: »

Is there a way to exclude certain people from an Am-Am, to simply tell them they can't play....p*ss off.

I'm sure whoever is organising the competition has the right of refusal for any entries. Just give the bandits a quick "Sorry, we have had to decline your entry at this time".

Kevinmarkham

Yep, it's a joke how often this happens, but it's about the integrity of the golfers. If they decide that they want to win, they can make it up as they go along. If the organisers are that concerned (or the golf club, or anyone else for that matter), then someone needs to go out and watch them play one or two holes. If they know they're being watched...

But this is a typical problem when there are good prizes at stake. I'm not saying it happens all the time, but I think most of us have come across something very similar. How you stop it is another matter entirely.

Hacker111

Same in my club.. one solution is to split all teams into 2 separate groups 2 with 2 other team mebers..it goes against ethos of team event..bit of craic with friends etc ...but same guys always win or come close too often to be true...

k.p.h

What were their scores and HC ?

Plentyofice

In Kildare I was at a tournament when this happened. There was muted applause for the winning team. They won by 12 shots with back nine separating 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
One of the winnning members from this tournament in kildare is a well known small in height man playing off 12 when he should be off 3 or 4. When he arrived to play in the tournament the following year he was refused entry unless he played off 4. he duly left

irishtoffee

Same in my club we have a Wednesday 4ball and Friday 3 person team event over 14 holes and the bandits are cleaning up.These are open tournaments do no effective shots after winning.These lads only play at weekend for point 1s.

k.p.h

Sorry yeah team event. Ah I think occasionally clubs should use some mathematics to calculate the probability of some of the scores being shot.

A cat 3 players probability of shooting a -5 nett is 174/1. Lets say in a team event you get two people shooting that. Thats an approximately a 30000/1 happening. Pretty much a straight DQ unless some sort of unbelievable explanation is believed.

"Ahhh , Leadbetter was down for tea and he gave me some useful tips"..!

This has been used to DQ people in international armature golf competitions so I don't see why it can't be used at club level. You can't argue with the maths.

That said I'm hoping for a 30000/1 happening in the Presidents Prize next week :rolleyes:

gary29428

Twoz a four man team event, with the two best scores to count on each hole. H'caps were from 17 to 25, that means they had at least 2 players with a par on 17 holes. Second was 14 points less at 93pts. I was thinking about 95 to win on the day, it was in Ballinrobe so the course was not a push over. Just sick of this c**p, as a low man I am being rendered totally useless by these cowboys....tis becoming my number one pet hate of golf, along with slow play obviously.

kermitpwee

Plentyofice wrote: »

In Kildare I was at a tournament when this happened. There was muted applause for the winning team. They won by 12 shots with back nine separating 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
One of the winnning members from this tournament in kildare is a well known small in height man playing off 12 when he should be off 3 or 4. When he arrived to play in the tournament the following year he was refused entry unless he played off 4. he duly left

You can't refuse a man entry when he has a gui handicap, the problem lies with him cheating and his home club not enforcing the law. Serves the fecker right tho:D

kermitpwee

gary29428 wrote: »

Twoz a four man team event, with the two best scores to count on each hole. H'caps were from 17 to 25, that means they had at least 2 players with a par on 17 holes. Second was 14 points less at 93pts. I was thinking about 95 to win on the day, it was in Ballinrobe so the course was not a push over. Just sick of this c**p, as a low man I am being rendered totally useless by these cowboys....tis becoming my number one pet hate of golf, along with slow play obviously.

I heard the course was playing more difficult than usual which justs compounds the issue even more.

Villain

Ah you get that with every club, members going out every week shooting 25-27 points to get .1 back but are talked about as great golfers and happen to be on a lot of Club Teams.

I think a limit of Ten .1 in a year should be introduced.

Corkblowin

On any particular day someone off a high handicap can shoot the lights out - a few long putts holed, a chip in, ball going OB hits a tree and comes back to the middle of the fairway - but 3 wins out of 4 attempts is taking the piss!!!

It is up to the clubs to enforce this, although as mentioned a lot of clubs have these guys on teams. Max of 1 shot back per year is a good idea. Does the GUI ever audit how clubs administer handicaps?

Mat the trasher

In these team events it must be clear who had the score on each hole, if this guy scored on say 8 or nine holes, ie, net -5 for 8 holes. Would it not be possible to write to GUI/homeclub saying that he was scoring far better than handicap, over one or successive comps and that you suspect that the handicap is not a true reflection of ability?

Plentyofice

Can you not get cut now on general play ?. I'm sure if a strong committee in the club highlights this repetitive issue to the offending golfers club and the fact that this will only show the club in very bad light that they will have to react.
There's a well known club that got bollocked in Roscommon and one in Kildare too where there's a history of farcical handicaps. I do believe they've gotten ther comuppence though in the last couple of years. !!:)

NapoleonInRags

k.p.h wrote: »

Sorry yeah team event. Ah I think occasionally clubs should use some mathematics to calculate the probability of some of the scores being shot.

A cat 3 players probability of shooting a -5 nett is 174/1. Lets say in a team event you get two people shooting that. Thats an approximately a 30000/1 happening. Pretty much a straight DQ unless some sort of unbelievable explanation is believed.

"Ahhh , Leadbetter was down for tea and he gave me some useful tips"..!

This has been used to DQ people in international armature golf competitions so I don't see why it can't be used at club level. You can't argue with the maths.

That said I'm hoping for a 30000/1 happening in the Presidents Prize next week :rolleyes:

I read an article recently in Golf Magazine or somesuch about using the probability approach to disqualify golfers with dubious scoring patterns. It sounds like the way to go on this to be honest, although it would need to be tightly controlled.

Dr_Colossus

gary29428 wrote: »

Twoz a four man team event, with the two best scores to count on each hole. H'caps were from 17 to 25, that means they had at least 2 players with a par on 17 holes. Second was 14 points less at 93pts. I was thinking about 95 to win on the day, it was in Ballinrobe so the course was not a push over. Just sick of this c**p, as a low man I am being rendered totally useless by these cowboys....tis becoming my number one pet hate of golf, along with slow play obviously.

Saw the adverts for this Am-Am when I played an open day there last month and was considering trying to put a team together. Love the course and since it was sponsored by Golfstyle I'd imagine the prizes were good and plentiful. Glad I didn't play now given that ridiculous winning score, with only two scores to count I'd consider anything over 90pts as being in with a shout.
Are the winners all members of Ballinrobe or somewhere nearby? I thought there was some adjustment clubs could make to players who brought in good scores in team events, something like the general play adjustment? Anyway given the seemingly blatant fabrication of their score and the unlikely event of winning the Am-Am 3 out of 4 times surely they can all be cut something like 4 shots each?

Hacker111

We cut on observation if particular players win 2 or more fourball/team events on a regular basis.... helps with handicap adjustments but not the magic pencil

If people are going to cheat it ruins it for everyone, takes the fun out of competitions...unfortunately there does seem to be a lot of guys out there willinging to win at any cost... whether it is manipulating their handicaps, moving their ball, writing the wrong score etc... sad really

G1032

gary29428 wrote: »

Was playing in an Am-Am the other week and it was won with 107pts with two to count on each hole. Was a very tuf day on a tuf course, second was 93pts. So these guys that won it have won this particular comp 3 times in 4 years. One of them got cut 2.5 by there club last year on GP and is again out to the same h'cap. Think about there score, they had 17 six pointers... there h'caps range from 17 to 25. As a low single figure golfer this gets right up my hole. It's bulls**t to constantly put in bad scores to boost your h'cap only to come out in these Am-Am's and shot the lights and pick up what are in most cases very valuable prices. This has stirred a right bit of uproar in the area. The organisers are sick to there stomacks of these gobs**ts, it's the comp that will suffer (it's for charity) as a lot of people I've spoken to will not play it again. Is there a way to exclude certain people from an Am-Am, to simply tell them they can't play....p*ss off.

The guy who plays off 17 used to play off 4.
He's been getting 2 shots a year back since I can remember.
They have been causing uproar for a long time I'm afraid, but there isn't really anything that can be done.
I wasn't over in Ballinrobe on the day, but I've been told that although there were prizes on display, it didn't say what was for first. I think that the prize for 2nd and 3rd places were much better than that for first. (This is what I've been told, but that could be wrong).
Thats the only way do sort of deal with this kind of thing. Give a poor prize for 1st place if it's known bandits who have won.

Just in case anyone thinks otherwise, I just want to clarify that none of them 4 guys are members in Ballinrobe.

ssbob

IMO the only way to deal with these "cheats" is ignore them on the golf course and in the clubhouse and at any events, they'll soon get the picture that this sort of behaviour is not tolerated.

Plentyofice

ssBob... sadly I couln't disagree with you more. You are dead right that they should be ignored and in kildare this club and suspect 12 handicapper have been ignored but if anything they have necks like a jockeys bo**ocks and couldn;t care once they win.
In my club if you get a prize in 2 team events the club review at the end of the year and cut you accordingly (I was 2nd twice in fourball tourneys in 2009 and cut .5) Same should happen here.
To be honest is this a question of dubious handicaps or a majic pencil ??:(

death1234567

Oh, forgot to say that there was a very large suspicsion of rampant cheating by the winning team at our club's AM-AM this year. Not sure if anything was ever done/proved.

G1032

Plentyofice wrote: »

To be honest is this a question of dubious handicaps or a majic pencil ??:(

It's not a magic pencil. Bad and all as they are they'll record what they actually score.
It's just years of handicap building.

ernieprice

The organizers should introduce a max handicap limit or retain the right to adjust any players handicap for this particular am-am.

Plentyofice

How about "NOT" showing the prizes for winning. It's a guaranteed winner as these boys might think they're playing for big prizes and when they win they should each receive and free glass of house wine as first prize with 2nd receiving 50" TV's

LuckyGent88

Unfortunetly these type of bandits are in every club. i know of 3 lads who have won 3 team of 4's in a row recently and noting much was said. They won one of the competitions by 10 points which is an awful lot in a team event.
Also, last weekend was our clubs captains prize. The scoring wasnt as good as usual which was great for the competition but i then heard that one of the qualifiers played in the open singles on the day before and had 24 points on front 9 off 15 and then only had 7 on the back. Clearly he was just out to practice before the weekend and then just pulled up. As a low handicaper that try's his best every time on the course that story really pi***d me off.

ssbob

On the contrary I played a 4 ball scramble last Friday and hit a lot of fairways long off the tee but just couldn't hit an iron to save my life where as the people I was playing with couldn't hit a fairway but were playing magic with irons and around the greens, at one stage we were 5 under with a chance to go to 7 under(eagle chip), finished off with 3 under, our handicaps were 12 to 32(lady golfer included), can happen where it all just comes together but improbable.

I am a person who wants to get cut though so have no problem with cuts in team events also.

Myksyk

The GUI also seem not to have the neck to address this issue in the small but important ways it could. A motion was defeated this year (13 to 12) to limit .1s to 20 per year, after which you could only be cut. At the moment you can get 20 .1s, be cut, then go and get another 20 .1s. This common sense proposal could have clipped the bandits' wings somewhat but was defeated. Depressing.

Sandwlch

k.p.h wrote: »

Sorry yeah team event. Ah I think occasionally clubs should use some mathematics to calculate the probability of some of the scores being shot.

A cat 3 players probability of shooting a -5 nett is 174/1. Lets say in a team event you get two people shooting that. Thats an approximately a 30000/1 happening. Pretty much a straight DQ unless some sort of unbelievable explanation is believed.

Odds of someone's ticket winning the lotto is about 1 in 4,000,000. So if they do win and even have some unbelievable explanation, they must have cheated the system somehow, even if you cant prove it. Cant argue with the maths.

G1032

Plentyofice wrote: »

How about "NOT" showing the prizes for winning. It's a guaranteed winner as these boys might think they're playing for big prizes and when they win they should each receive and free glass of house wine as first prize with 2nd receiving 50" TV's

Thats essentially what they did in this instance.

Benny Cake

Why not pen a letter to their club(s)?, if you document this it will be harder for their antics to be ignored....