Lowest Handicap

ulysses32

Hi folks- I just thought it would be interesting to find out what kind of handicaps are out there in the plus range. I think the lowest in our club is +1/+2. Any of you come across lower than this?

Benicetomonty

ulysses32 wrote: »

Hi folks- I just thought it would be interesting to find out what kind of handicaps are out there in the plus range. I think the lowest in our club is +1/+2. Any of you come across lower than this?

+5 in our place, an international and East of Ireland winner in his time!

Rikand

Benicetomonty wrote: »

+5 in our place, an international and East of Ireland winner in his time!

in his time ? which I'm guessing was all within the last 2-3 years ?

Benicetomonty

Rickylovesuall wrote: »

in his time ? which I'm guessing was all within the last 2-3 years ?

Correct. And no, its not me :-)

Rikand

lol, I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say :: R.O.D

Our lowest in Athlone is a +2, we have two +1's aswell

Dr_Colossus

Wow, thought Conor Deegan from Castle Golf club off +5 was the lowest in Ireland and only recently heard of his handicap which surprised me at the time as previously thought the lowest was +3. Some serious standard out there just to maintain that never mind trying to get cut.

levitronix

+2 is the new scratch

ssbob

We have a few +handicaps on boards if you look at the handicap listing. In my club however we don't have anyone off scratch, 1 player flirting with it alright!

Keano

I don't think my club has any + but one is well on his way, should be there very soon, last time I checked he was scratch and his scores were unreal. Plenty around the 1 or 2 mark though

ulysses32

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

Wow, thought Conor Deegan from Castle Golf club off +5 was the lowest in Ireland and only recently heard of his handicap which surprised me at the time as previously thought the lowest was +3. Some serious standard out there just to maintain that never mind trying to get cut.

+5 is pretty spectacular. Makes you wonder why someone wouldn't have a bash off the pro circuit with ability like that!

mag

weve a +1, couple of scratches and a half a dozen 1s & 2s

ssbob

ulysses32 wrote: »

+5 is pretty spectacular. Makes you wonder why someone wouldn't have a bash off the pro circuit with ability like that!

Even to try and get an invite to Irish Open or something and see how he went! Would be interesting alright!

slave1

+5 was the lowest I've played with, a lady who represented Ireland for many years, it was over 10 years ago so I've forgotten her name.
I do remember the round though, pretty tidy off the tee but every shot onto the green was shaped so when the ball landed it was like there was a remote control to move it towards the flag, I can't remember her score on the day but it was pretty much birdie putts on virtually every hole.
Lowest in recent times is -1, lands the ball 290-300, on all par 5's in two strokes and all down to how he putts on the day.
Both were/are a pleasure to play with.

Allumni

Played with a +3 once. Although he didn't play well it was still a joy to watch. There's a tough par 5 in the Heritage with water running up towards the green and he stuck it on the green with some sort of a wood from the rough. Different game isn;t it? :cool:

PARlance

ulysses32 wrote: »

+5 is pretty spectacular. Makes you wonder why someone wouldn't have a bash off the pro circuit with ability like that!

ssbob wrote: »

Even to try and get an invite to Irish Open or something and see how he went! Would be interesting alright!

He was talking about this a few weeks ago on the newstalk podcast (after the East of Ireland...I think that was his first), someone had also mentioned it on here. He doesn't play much golf outside of his club comps and inter club matches.

He was more or less saying that, although he is +5, that there's a big step up needed to be able to compete at these events. Said something about guys playing of higher handicaps that were just better than him when it comes to these tournaments.
Mainly due to lack of experience, practice in them etc.
He was being unassuming as per normal.
He said he can maintain the HC in his club but playing to it under pressure and over several days is somewhere where his game isn't at yet.

So...he's a bad +5 :eek::D:D

Paulusmaximus

ajcurry123 wrote: »

He was talking about this a few weeks ago on the newstalk podcast (after the East of Ireland...I think that was his first), someone had also mentioned it on here. He doesn't play much golf outside of his club comps and inter club matches.

He was more or less saying that, although he is +5, that there's a big step up needed to be able to compete at these events. Said something about guys playing of higher handicaps that were just better than him when it comes to these tournaments.
Mainly due to lack of experience, practice in them etc.
He was being unassuming as per normal.
He said he can maintain the HC in his club but playing to it under pressure and over several days is somewhere where his game isn't at yet.

So...he's a bad +5 :eek::D:D

Without being disrepectful to Conor Deegan i've come across him a couple of times in Senior Cups. I think the story is that he's not always up to 36 holes in the one day. He doesn't play in the championships for various reasons and has pretty much mastered playing the Castle.

Don't get me wrong, he's an excellent golfer, but as he alluded to himself, until he's playing championship golf on championship courses regularly he wouldn't be up to the same level as top amateurs in the country.

anyway, back to handicaps and i think they are such an ego thing. I think there are quite a few scratch and plus guys out there who massage their handicap and manage it quite well. They pick and choose the events they play in and avoid ones where they may struggle. there are a few out there off +1 and +2 and if you asked them what scratch cups they've won, what championships have they really competed in, how many club championships etc they had won, they'd be struggling to name any.

they certainly wouldn't be teeing it up on a saturday or sunday after 20 pints the night before!

Maybe i'm just bitter and jealous because i havent played in any of the championships and am just outside the cut off mark.

GreeBo

Paulusmaximus wrote: »

Without being disrepectful to Conor Deegan i've come across him a couple of times in Senior Cups. I think the story is that he's not always up to 36 holes in the one day. He doesn't play in the championships for various reasons and has pretty much mastered playing the Castle.

Don't get me wrong, he's an excellent golfer, but as he alluded to himself, until he's playing championship golf on championship courses regularly he wouldn't be up to the same level as top amateurs in the country.

anyway, back to handicaps and i think they are such an ego thing. I think there are quite a few scratch and plus guys out there who massage their handicap and manage it quite well. They pick and choose the events they play in and avoid ones where they may struggle. there are a few out there off +1 and +2 and if you asked them what scratch cups they've won, what championships have they really competed in, how many club championships etc they had won, they'd be struggling to name any.

they certainly wouldn't be teeing it up on a saturday or sunday after 20 pints the night before!

Maybe i'm just bitter and jealous because i havent played in any of the championships and am just outside the cut off mark.

I think there is a huge difference on being a +5 club golfer and a +anything Championship golfer.

I played with a +6 who went Pro and just said it was so hard to make it on the euro pro tour. He had a couple of top 10's early on but then these dried up. The pressure when you have a family to feed competing against 19 year olds who are "just" out there having fun is immense.

also it was very common for guys to have 3 good rounds and then just have an off day. This might be fine on the PGA tour, but on Euro Pro you go broke very quickly.

Russman

I think our lowest is 5, and there's only 3 or 4 of those. There might be one guy off 2 but he's a member elsewhere and rarely plays in our club.
We're not really great at golf in my club !!:(

rooney30

Surely a lot depends on the club a guy is a member of . I mean a scratch golfer from a difficult championship course like Adare, Waterville or European club for example would be the equal of a plus 3 or 4 handicap golfer from a piss easy Dublin parkland ( I won't mention any names)

FixdePitchmark

rooney30 wrote: »

Surely a lot depends on the club a guy is a member of . I mean a scratch golfer from a difficult championship course like Adare, Waterville or European club for example would be the equal of a plus 3 or 4 handicap golfer from a piss easy Dublin parkland ( I won't mention any names)

Sorry - don't know much about it - but does SSS not negate that ?

rooney30

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Sorry - don't know much about it - but does SSS not negate that ?

I thought about that, but does it really though???? Anybody?

FixdePitchmark

rooney30 wrote: »

I thought about that, but does it really though???? Anybody?

I guess yes because every other member in the club is in a piss easy club as you call it.

The gurus will follow. Anyway - if I was a + player , it wouldn't matter if it was a pitch and putt course. Class.

Russman

rooney30 wrote: »

I thought about that, but does it really though???? Anybody?

Hehe............{gets popcorn.....}:D:D

Russman

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Sorry - don't know much about it - but does SSS not negate that ?

In theory it should do, but it depends on when the SSS was last updated or reviewed by the GUI.
Our SSS was 37/38pts (white & blue tees) for years and years & CSS was frequently 38 or 39pts with the result that it was actually quite difficult to get cut. I can remember on at least two occasions getting 0.1 back for shooting 36pts off 3 many moons ago.
However about 2 years ago the GUI did a review of our course (we added 2 new holes and many if not most had been changed over the years, new greens etc). Anyway the SSS is now 35 & 36pts, with the result that it should be easier to get cut. The fact that the course is that much harder to score on now is lost on some members but there you go....

FixdePitchmark

Russman wrote: »

In theory it should do, but it depends on when the SSS was last updated or reviewed by the GUI.
Our SSS was 37/38pts (white & blue tees) for years and years & CSS was frequently 38 or 39pts with the result that it was actually quite difficult to get cut. I can remember on at least two occasions getting 0.1 back for shooting 36pts off 3 many moons ago.
However about 2 years ago the GUI did a review of our course (we added 2 new holes and many if not most had been changed over the years, new greens etc). Anyway the SSS is now 35 & 36pts, with the result that it should be easier to get cut. The fact that the course is that much harder to score on now is lost on some members but there you go....

So +/- 1 shot. A bloke off +3 is no hacker no matter what.

TheDoc

GreeBo wrote: »

I think there is a huge difference on being a +5 club golfer and a +anything Championship golfer.

I played with a +6 who went Pro and just said it was so hard to make it on the euro pro tour. He had a couple of top 10's early on but then these dried up. The pressure when you have a family to feed competing against 19 year olds who are "just" out there having fun is immense.

also it was very common for guys to have 3 good rounds and then just have an off day. This might be fine on the PGA tour, but on Euro Pro you go broke very quickly.

This sums it up really. Friend of the family hit the Euro Pro tour after being a highly accomplished golfer coming from the amateur scene.

He found the pressure for essentially putting food on the table to be too much. He left a steady job to take this wild risk. While he maintains he had to take the chance as its a once in a lifetime opportunity, there is a lot of things the average golfer won't factor in when someone takes a stab at the competitive scene.

Organising flights and accommodation for himself and his caddy, something you wouldn't consider, became a pressure task when there was little money from earnings to cover the outlay.

Not sure what the lowest in our club is. We had a rake of top young golfers but some got poached by the Island, others fell out of golf, one went onto be the head fitter for Titleist in Ireland afaik. Another went to Malahide as an assistant pro, and speaking to his Da last week he lost confidence in his game and quit.

Have to say football here has a bad rep for poaching, golf is the same if not worse : /

I was looking at our senior cup signup sheet last week and saw only three names.

I think we are one of those clubs that's still, in golfing terms, in it's infancy, and wonder if that affects it.

Another factor is how hard the golf course is, and that is a really big factor imo. The 3-5 handicappers in our club would be definitely scratch or plus golfers in others. I've played other courses where I could see myself definitely being of lower then what I am now in my current. Think it's one of those Irish golfer things that when someone tells you their off scratch or +, your next question is from what course.

ssbob

TheDoc wrote: »

This sums it up really. Friend of the family hit the Euro Pro tour after being a highly accomplished golfer coming from the amateur scene.

He found the pressure for essentially putting food on the table to be too much. He left a steady job to take this wild risk. While he maintains he had to take the chance as its a once in a lifetime opportunity, there is a lot of things the average golfer won't factor in when someone takes a stab at the competitive scene.

Organising flights and accommodation for himself and his caddy, something you wouldn't consider, became a pressure task when there was little money from earnings to cover the outlay.

This was his first mistake, having a caddy on the EuroPro Tour. Also my understanding from talking to a lot of touring pro's and having read Lawerence Donegan's "Four iron in the soul" was that the caddies were to fend for themselves ie. getting from A to B, organising their own accomodation.

Talking to some pro's they just reckoned that the standard just kept getting better year on year and it was hard to keep up with the younger kids who were outdriving them by miles which on some courses made a huge difference.

mag

TheDoc wrote: »

Another factor is how hard the golf course is, and that is a really big factor imo. The 3-5 handicappers in our club would be definitely scratch or plus golfers in others. I've played other courses where I could see myself definitely being of lower then what I am now in my current. Think it's one of those Irish golfer things that when someone tells you their off scratch or +, your next question is from what course.

where do you play out of doc?

FixdePitchmark

Good post The Doc.

Whilest a pain to lose a great young player after years at one club. Is it not the case that the major amateur events are held on big links courses.

As an outsider looking in , I could see the logic of certain young players needing to play at the big old links courses ?

TheDoc

@ssbob

Yeah might be the case. Caddy was a friend of his who played together for years, knew his game well and wasn't afraid to make big calls for him in terms of " don't do that" or " do this". So the player was comfortable. But I think it was more in general that organisation rather then specifically having the caddy. At the end of the day the cost to have two people in a room compared to one, is mostly negligible.

@mag
I'm in Hollywood Lakes. As some examples to the point, I always found I played really strong on courses like Donabate and Corrstown, shooting in the 70's anytime I was there with some decent form with me. Where I found places like Skerries a bit of a struggle at times. Always feel your course grains something into your game that you can take as an advantage elsewhere. My club, most iron shots are off uneven lies, so when I get to flat tracks, I've an advantage of getting crisp irons most of the time.

Our greens are notorously difficult to read and judge pace, so I find away from home I do well on other clubs greens.

On the flipside our course is relatively safe of the tee, if I hit a track thats narrow with treelines, I can struggle a bit. Also we don't deploy elevated greens so I struggle with how to cope with them, in regards to playing delicate shots around the greens. Although I personally think elevated greens a trash and lazy design, but could stem from the difficulty I have with them

@fixedpitchmark

True to a degree. But I've experience in terms of this from a relatively successful schoolboy football days. In golf it's a bit weird in a sense that there is no real procedure or decorum, you just get approached. And a bit like football, sometimes the golf club you play out of, has more of a influence then the actual game your playing. Was lucky enough to get involved in a few junior panels in my teens, and it seemed to be the same faces always making the grade, regardless of form.

You might be spot on with the links course thing, never actually considered that. I have a certain hate/hate relationship with links

loadwire

ssbob wrote: »

This was his first mistake, having a caddy on the EuroPro Tour. Also my understanding from talking to a lot of touring pro's and having read Lawerence Donegan's "Four iron in the soul" was that the caddies were to fend for themselves ie. getting from A to B, organising their own accomodation.

Agree. Some pro's on the margins also just use local caddies wherever they are playing to cut costs. Or at least they used to, maybe it doesn't go on to the same extent these days.

GreeBo

Russman wrote: »

In theory it should do, but it depends on when the SSS was last updated or reviewed by the GUI.
Our SSS was 37/38pts (white & blue tees) for years and years & CSS was frequently 38 or 39pts with the result that it was actually quite difficult to get cut. I can remember on at least two occasions getting 0.1 back for shooting 36pts off 3 many moons ago.
However about 2 years ago the GUI did a review of our course (we added 2 new holes and many if not most had been changed over the years, new greens etc). Anyway the SSS is now 35 & 36pts, with the result that it should be easier to get cut. The fact that the course is that much harder to score on now is lost on some members but there you go....

Any changes should have led to an immediate review.
We've moved tees & greens a few times over the last few years and everytime the GUI heads out to check if SSS needs to change.
Recently we rebuilt a tee for a par 3 but decided not to alter it more than the allowed margins so we didnt need another review.
Our SSS is +1 (69) so in theory its harder to get shots back, but thats because the course is hard (with 6 par 3s)