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2025 Interclub Eligibility

  • 02-02-2025 1:56pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭


    Not sure if any of you may be aware but there has been some changes to the eligibility for most inter club competitions for the coming year

    The first change is pretty straight forward, you have to have 4 competition scores on your record from the previous year. I can't see this being an issue for pretty much any intrerclub player as I would expect no club are picking players who don't play anything other than casual golf. So IMO this is a token change probably implemented to appease someone with a poorly thought out gripe. They should have said at least 10.

    The second is well….. confusing to say the lease. If you get far in the comp, we will reassess your qualifying handicap by some sort of formula but we won't tell you the formula

    https://www.golfireland.ie/club-hub-detail/nb-information-on-eligibility-for-2025-inter-club-competitions



Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,058 ✭✭✭paulos53


    Golf Ireland have clarified that recently. Any players that reached an Area final or beyond in 2024 will have their handicap reviewed. The adjusted handicap will only apply to 2025 inter-club matches. It also only applies to players who have a higher inter-club handicap this year than they did last year.

    The adjustments are small enough. 0.5 or 1.0 depending on how many matches that the person won.

    https://static.clubhouse.golfireland.ie/clubs/1000/uploads/championships/inter-club%20eligibility%20handicap%20index.pdf



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,582 ✭✭✭✭Rikand


    It has already been applied and it can be seen by any handicap secretary via the golfireland clubhouse website. I think they said 100 + players have been impacted by this. So not many in the grand scheme of things



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB


    I only see 1 column with eligibility index

    I don't see a second one with an adjustment

    is it just built into the eligibility one?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB


    how did golf Ireland know who to apply it to?

    I suppose it was the report we sent in at the end of the year

    but I am looking at 1 particular individual and don't think they have this correct

    Post edited by Seve OB on


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,582 ✭✭✭✭Rikand


    It's built in. You've nothing to worry about 👍



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB


    we have looked at 2 fellas who got to all Ireland final (could have more but I haven’t looked). It Looks wrong to me. My colleague is sending mail to GI for clarification



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,582 ✭✭✭✭Rikand


    Did they win all their matches or were they just on the team but not winning matches ? If it's the latter, they won't be cut or would be hard done by to have been cut



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB


    winning matches

    one lad won 4 matches, lost none (in the finals stages and was on the report I sent in). his eligibility index is same as his lowest index last year



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 131 ✭✭zocklie


    Could this not essentially rule some people out of playing if they go a run this year?

    Say 2 lads combined to 14.0 exactly for Jimmy Bruen, and then one of them gets cut 0.5 after 4 or 5 matches, do they then need to find different partners? Seems harsh



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,582 ✭✭✭✭Rikand


    Theoretically, if lads were playing well enough to win 4 or 5 matches in a row, their handicaps probably should have gone down anyway naturally by playing well in comps or casual. Our club got to an all Ireland semi final and of the 15 players on the panel, 13 dropped their handicaps by at least a shot. Some of them lost between 4 & 6 shots over the year.

    But this cut is designed to stop the same players and pairings winning and playing together every year. I guess they are trying to stop certain clubs from winning every year and spread the wins around.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,582 ✭✭✭✭Rikand


    And did his handicap go down while he was doing all that winning ?

    Also, you know, you as the handicap secretary could have suggested to cut him. That form would certainly warrant it



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 254 ✭✭GolfPar


    Would be interesting to see how many of these cuts were applied to players of say Pierce Purcell standard from certain parts of the Munster region.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,361 ✭✭✭big_drive


    Your club were doing things correctly.

    Problem is the clubs who win something yet somehow come back the following season with the exact same players, some who have actually increased handicap.

    Let's be honest, if your playing well enough to win a title with your club and in that type of form your handicap should definitely be going down, particularly at the like of a Purcell level.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭coillcam


    One solution is to capture each interclub match as a scoring round for handicap purposes. Implementing that will be tricky for many reasons. You'd need teams/managers to create comps on their software or have secretaries manually enter scores after. Alternatively, paper records are handed over to GI to enter into the system.

    If someone is winning matches and being under par relative to their handicap. This should be counted on their record. Even if you get called in after 10. That score can be scaled up to 18 holes.

    The issues I see are:

    1. It doesn't account for amazing interclub performances in the current season.
    2. Further overhead in capturing scores.
    3. Any given player will still pad their record with comps/casual rounds to offset the interclub scores.
    4. A squad member on a "high" can still be held back until later rounds before being released in a big late-stage match.
    5. Pickups/concessions need to be estimated as x shots/putts to complete the hole (usga has guidance on this already).

    The benefits are obvious:

    1. More scores on records means that indexes should be more accurate/current.
    2. Annual Reviews have plain and obvious outlier scores that should be picked up by secretaries and GI.
    3. Transparency - we can all see what's going on and GI too. It can be improved and reformed further down the line.

    Last year I played a guy who had a higher index than mine (12 vs 11) and he was a comfortable +2 through 12 before I could fire a shot in anger. He never saw the course before either. Afterwards, we looked at his record. Primarily he scored in the high 80s and low 90s. Although he always has a handful of sub-80s conveniently around major/medal season on back tees. Three years in a row with the same pattern and it's clear the guy is a legit single-digit golfer who had a good round on the day. Still, you can argue he should have had a true lower index and not played that comp.

    If you scaled up his score, the differential would be about 4 or 5 on his WHS record for those tees. This would then be an exceptional score vs his normal 12 index and he'd have an automatic adjustment of -1 against his last 20 scores. Overnight his index should drop to ~10 with the new score included and rightly so. This looks like sour grapes on my part but the numbers don't lie.

    Someone like this is free to keep doing the same rinse/repeat this year and only lose 0.5-1.0 shots but ONLY IF they make it far in a given interclub comp. Hardly seems fair to clubs and players who do things the right way. GI can even get a report built for secretaries that filters interclub scores for secretaries to analyse further.

    The changes this year are a step in the right direction and hopefully will lead to more competitive interclubs. It would be great to see GI build on this for 2026.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,173 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB


    he is at 1 shot lower than he started the year. low handicap, 2.4

    we cut no team players as we felt their current handicap index is aligned with WHS principles of being a true representation of current form. to be fair, most lads who did well on teams, have naturally reduced their index. GI did question some of this and when we explained our reasons, they said OK.

    Sure you can win all sorts of matchplay comps by not even shooting close to your handicap. Foursomes, four ball, mixed etc, not easy to say a player should just get cut because they won a few matches. It is very subjective. If there was a clear directive, win X match, you get cut… then it applies across the board and it takes away that subjectivity.

    I think most of what @coillcam is outlining above is more aligned with some of the flaws in WHS, so not really specifically interclub related.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,644 ✭✭✭token56


    The difficulty is a lot of the major competitions, Pierce Purcell, Jimmy Bruen, Barton Cup are all foursome competitions and I would say it is almost impossible to assess an individuals performance in these. I think what they are trying to do now, with loosing a shot based on performance in the competitions is the right approach but it needs to be transparent and managed centrally by Golf Ireland.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 96 ✭✭Walter Alright


    Cahir Park’s winning Pierce Purcell 2024 team all got decent handicap cuts.

    The pairing who won the playoff hole in the All Ireland Final both got cut 5 shots each. This pairing also won the Cahir’s club foursomes competition in 2024 and played in the Pierce Purcell All Ireland final in 2023.

    Most of the team got cut at least 2 shots, one member of the All Ireland winning team also won the club match play competition in 2024 and he got cut 3 shots. He also played in the Pierce Purcell All Ireland Final 2023 defeat to Spanish Point.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 955 ✭✭✭bobster453


    Sound lads all who worked hard over the past year or two, not a sombrero to be seen.🤠



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