Your New WHS Index

Russman

Taking a step back, is it just me, or does there seem to be something inherently wrong with a system that "gives" you a score or deems that you had a net par or bogey on a hole, or where you have to scale up your score to produce a total ? Just seems incredibly artificial and contrived.

coillcam

@billy3sheets @Rikand

Sound lads, I was just curious as the topic came up recently in a group I was playing with. The usual banditry, whs no good type stuff and questioning how much work the HC secretary/committee actually does. Can't win comps because of 25 hc lads etc.

Tbf to the lads, they said the previous system was good because of the 0.1 shot you'd get back and bandits could be "managed". While not long later stating, that's not fair because you had "no chance" for 2 years after posting a PB to win a comp and getting a big cut.

There's just no pleasing everyone. Plus no system is 100% fair and comprehensive to catch every permutation. You also can't win or place in every single competition either.

spacecoyote

I do think that the greatest flaw of the system is that it basically works on the assumption that everyone should be competitive from day one. So the system goes down to your level, rather than you coming up to your handicap in the CONGU system.

So, it doesn't massively incentivise improvement.

"Can't score off 18, no problem, you'll get yourself a handicap that will let you score"

The 26 year old who just quit hurling and is learning the game and first 3 games shooting 110. Congu, maybe he gets 24 with a generous Handicap Sec. WHS, he's off 38. Fit, healthy, practicing, suddenly he's shooting 96 within a month or so, walks in with 50 points. Everyone calls him a bandit. Reality is, system is broken for those scenarios, not the lads fault.

coillcam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155633#Comment_121155633

FWIW I started playing as a 30-something ex-hurler after WHS was introduced. My first cards handed in were in the 105-112 range. It took ages to get them in also as COVID meant I had to get 6x9 hole cards to cover front/back.

I was given a 21 index on that basis. Because I didn't have enough cards in I also had the additional strokes removed until my record filled up so I was really playing as a 19 index. After a few months, I did start to shoot closer to my hc but I wasn't hitting 50 points. The additional stroke loading and being given a sensible starting index meant it took me a while before I posted a big score.

I was around 17 index but regularly scoring low 90s and then I finally broke 90 to shot an 84 so I ended with 42 points that day. My only Sunday comp win in the 3 years I've played.

Tbf I'm unsure why I got a 21 index applied other than the hc sec applying common sense as you mentioned. If it was just down to a WHS calc then surely I should have been 30+ hc based on my first few cards.

Maybe there is some inconsistency in the way the new handicaps are applied in different clubs. In my club you have to have 28hc max and a certain number of cards to win first prizes. To me, that does incentivise the newcomers to apply themselves and protect the regs from the newcomer "banditry" phenomenon. This is entirely different to the actual bandits who have amazing upticks in form during major season.

spacecoyote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155919#Comment_121155919

Sounds like you have a sensible handicap sec there.

bakerbhoy

Horrible weather yesterday morning.

Finnish of Club champion golfer.

Off the tips stroke.

Top 30 20 odd actually played.

Pcc 1.

Nett 77 for me. Plus 5. 31 pts.

Finnish 6th.

Now one of my counting WHS.

copacetic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155919#Comment_121155919

. There is a specific sequence in whs, your 21 should have been based on your best adjusted best score so your 105 less anything over double bogey, then an extra 2 shots off that. So 21 sounds about right. After that the adjustment as you add scores is as below, which sounds more or less as your describe

• 3 scores: lowest score -2
• 4 scores: lowest score -1
• 5 scores: lowest score
• 6 scores: average of lowest 2 scores -1
• 7 to 8 scores: average of lowest 2 scores
• 9 to 11 scores: average of lowest 3 scores
• 12 to 14 scores: average of lowest 4 scores
• 15 to 16 scores: average of lowest 5 scores
• 17 to 18 scores: average of lowest 6 scores
• 19 scores: average of lowest 7 scores
• 20 scores: average of lowest 8 scores

Rikand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156224#Comment_121156224

I know of a hcap sec from another club who tried to do this. A new member who believed they should have gotten a 30 handicap based off their cards approached golf ireland. Golf ireland rammed a lightning bolt up the hcap secs arse and told him the point of whs is to apply what is given by the system unless the player has a previous golfing history. A former hurler/footballer/wwf wrestler does not count as being a golfer.

In my club, we asked golf ireland if we could apply new handicaps sensibly and we were also given a firm 'NO'.

Good luck to that handicap sec you have in your club Coillcam 😉

coillcam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121157015#Comment_121157015

Interesting point on GI, I thought the hc secretary/committee had some discretion here. I know of a couple of members who had serious illnesses and rightly were given back a few strokes on their return. It is a completely different scenario though.

So every newbie should get the correct (big) hc from their cards and will typically drop dramatically after a few months. The only way to stop them from winning a competition is to put in HC limits or x no. of cards/comps as a club rule. How fair is applying this type of criteria... well it would be open to debate imo.

GI are saying to you that the system always gives everyone their hc based on current ability regardless of 3 cards or 20 years of experience. However, for the first 12 months-ish as the newbie dramatically improves, this group/type of player should always threaten for top prizes. It's a statistical certainty.

Protecting the "regulars" is a matter for the club and competitions committee I suppose. You can also see the newbie's perspective of potentially being excluded and some sense of elitism. The newbies in my club can't win anything significant until they're a full member (2-3 years before they'll transfer from beginner>introductory>full).

I can imagine the Yanks scratching their head at this kind of discussion. Competitions aren't of interest to the typical average golfer over there. Whereas in Ireland and my club, at least, 70-80% of male members are big into their Sunday comps. The rest of the membership are juniors, too busy or very infrequent casual golfers.

DiegoWorst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121157015#Comment_121157015

I'm not sure of the history, but I believe:

Golf Ireland's original stance was for clubs to accept what the WHS system determined the new handicap index should be after 3 cards are entered.

Clubs complained, Golf Ireland relented, handicap secretaries were allowed to adjust the new handicap by up to 5 shots.

Clubs complained some more, Golf Ireland said adjustments based on sporting history or past golf experience can be used to make an adjustment. I have no idea if there is currently a limit on how many shots a new handicap can be adjusted by.

I do know that each club has figured out its own way of doing it, some clubs don't adjust, some cut the legs.

billy3sheets

Handicap secretary/committee has discretion. They can discuss any information available to them, such as history of particiaption in other sport, but it's all subjective. How much adjustment to apply for an inter-county hurler, an international hockey player? What about age?

WHS will self adjust anyway with new scores. See the details provided by @copacetic above.

Any member can appeal their HI to their committee. If a member has hit the Hard Cap, perhaps due to illness, then the committe can review the scores of that member, remove the cap and increase their HI. All scores are reviewed at the end of the year for the Annul Handicap Review(AHR) also and there arare reports available to support this.

I've processed wll over 100 handicap applications in almost 2 years. I can only recall 2 occasions where a new handicap went and won on their first outing and then it was one-off, not repeated.

I believe most clubs are introducing rules so that you must have a minimum numberof qualifying rounds or perhaps a fully-qualified (20 scores) HI to win major comps. I think this is fair but it does discourage entry into those competitions for those who have just joined.

Miley Byrne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160360#Comment_121160360

Just on your last paragraph there. I think this is the best way to do it (limit any prizes in majors to players that have a minimum of 20 qualifying scores (ie in my mind "a legit handicap")) and while you say this might discourage new members to play in majors I would look at it the other way. It would encourage new members to play in run of the mill comps all year round but especially early in the year.

boccy23

On WHS in general (some of the experts here may be able to explain it), my handicap is 15.5, and course handicap is 15. Yesterday I was level on a V-Par (or 36 points of it was SFord) so should the score differential not be 15? On my record it is 18. There was no PCC or any other complications.

Seve OB

V par could muddy the water for you slightly and when you think about it, probably shouldn’t be used for WHS

if you win a hole with 4 points or 3 points it is irrelevant . It is just a win

if you loose a hole with 1 point or 0 points, it’s just a loss.

so for WHS to be applied, you really have to finish out. In v-par if you have lost the hole you are not required to finish out. But for WHS it makes a difference if your loss is 1 point or none. And you can’t stick a 5 down for the par 4 where you had no shot but picked up instead of rolling in the 2 footer

Seve OB

Throw up your card there with scores/indexes and slope/ course rating and we can analyse it

boccy23

See here:

DiegoWorst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121184627#Comment_121184627

the score differential is calculated using Adjusted Gross, PCC, Course Rating and Slope Rating

((AdjGross - PCC) - CourseRating) * (113 / SlopeRating)

Which does work out to be 18

boccy23

Ok, the course was rerated this year. Would that explain why 36 points doesn't equal the playing handicap?

JIdontknow

As a rough guide the 113 is like a baseline / constant value for the calculation. The course rating will also affect the calculation but because the slope is lower than the "baseline" the score differential will actually be higher than 15 over par.

The calculation for score differential as above is the gross adjusted score minus the course rating and minus the PCC. Multiple this by 113 and divide by the slope rating. Typically the lower the slope rating the easier a course is deemed, (you also need to consider the course rating but often that is the case).

In your case 83 (Adjusted gross) - 65.8 (course rating) = 17.2

17.2 x 113 / 108 = 17.996 = 18.

I took a similar 15 over par (85 gross) on a different course (In this case let's take Esker Hills because of Lowry).

Slope: 129 / Course Rating: 70.2

85 (adjusted gross) -70.2 (course rating) = 14.8

14.8 x 113 / 129 (slope rating) = 12.96 = 13 score differential.

Reverse calculating it for you to get a score differential of 15 on your own course currently you'd need to shoot about 80 off current handicap index. (14.9 score differential). = 80 - 65.8 = 14.2 * 113 / 108 = 14.86

Hopefully the above is correct!!

Seve OB

if that doesn’t make sense look at it this way

113 is standard slope

if you shoot your handicap 36 points on a course with slope 113, your SD for the day will be your handicap

108 is an easier course so in theory you should be shooting a better score than 36 points to get a SD equal to your handicap.

flip that and if you played a tougher course, say slope 120 and only shoot 33 points, that might be a very good score and enough to get you a SD equal to your handicap

bakerbhoy

That's a problem isn't it.

If the course ratings are off/incorrect. Hcaps at those clubs are skewed either way .

32 pts at my course equals a reduction. Not sure it's merited.

boccy23

Thanks Seve

paulos53

Some new changes to WHS coming in 2024. Links attached with more detailed explanations.

Course Rating minus Par will be used for calculating course handicap. Already used in the rest of the world except Britain & Ireland. The major benefit is that it provides fairness if you want to hold a multi-tee competition.

Example: Your course is a par 72 and the course rating is 72.6. Then you will get an extra 0.6 to your course handicap

https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/whs/what-is-course-rating-minus-par/

Good scores in a Fourball can count for handicap. Basically if a player scores on at least 9 of the holes then an 18 hole score will be calculated. This score will need to be at least 36 pts to be a handicap qualifying score.

https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/whs/whs-changes-2024-fourball-betterball-scores-handicap/

10-17 hole rounds can be handicap qualifying. Coincidentally, I had a query about a 17 hole round on this thread a few weeks ago. Good to know that the golfing authorities are monitoring our posts. 🤣

https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/whs/whs-changes-2024-what-is-expected-score/

https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/whs/whs-changes-2024-competitions-non-standard-number-of-holes

Courses now only need to be 1500 yards to get a course rating. This allows par 3 courses to be rated

https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/whs/whs-changes-2024-par-3-golf-course

A few other small changes if anybody wants to read the full list: https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/whs/world-handicap-system-2024-rules-of-handicapping/

PARlance

Excellent news re the 10-17 holes... It'll be interesting to see if our Tuesday evening 10 hole comp will take this up. No excuses now. They might even switch it to a 9 hole so it can finish at the clubhouse.

RoadRunner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121342097#Comment_121342097

I remember you explaining that one.. 🤐 bizarre!

PARlance

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121342212#Comment_121342212

Bizarre is not the word! Literally going out of the way to make it non-counting.

dan_ep82

Feel the changes deserve a new thread so it doesn’t get buried

The Expected score change I’ll have to look at again, just skimming it and it seems like it will effect any 9 holes rounds

blue note

I'm not fond of the fourballs being able to count, but in fairness it is just the good ones. I suppose it will get those guys who play a lot of fourballs so generally don't have their good scores count.

The par 3 courses sounds crazy to me. Some par 3 courses are glorified pitch and putt courses. Longer than pitch and putt holes, but a long way short of proper par 3s. And smaller greens. It's just not quite the same game as golf. But I suppose it will affect so few handicaps it just won't matter.

Seve OB

I doubt any of those short courses in Ireland….. or are there?

fourball will be interesting to see how it works. I know I had always been used in other jurisdictions. You had to finish out the very hole and put your score in.

but rife for cheating. Partner in for par…… ooops I missed that 1 footer for mine 🥸

spacecoyote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121348330#Comment_121348330

Or don't even write a score on the card other than the one that's counting