Your New WHS Index

It's been communicated out through the clubs as far as I can see.

How many will complete is another question.

World wide survey.

Because it's non-counting you can put 9 Mulligans in the rules for all anyone cares. Per Awec, singles is always 95% of course handicap for the playing handicap. My club is doing a singles stableford each week for winter but the league is a team format. So best 3 of the 4 individual scores on the team go into your total.

Also your playing handicap is not 50% of the 18 hole handicap. If playing F9 or B9, those sepcific set of tees will have it's own individual rating/slope. So you can have 2x different 9 hole handicaps. Then 95% of that and finally rounded to nearest whole number.

I have a single figure handicap myself so I’m unaffected by it, however higher handicaps are, I just thought if it’s only 9 holes the difference shouldn’t be 95% , it should be a different percentage to accommodate only 9 holes been played

The 2 9s in my club would also have a shot difference for some hcaps but for the winter league it is your best 4 scores on each 9 that count towards your final total. There is not advantage or disadvantage to playing either 9 on a given day as you will have to play each at least 4 times anyway.

I think the rating is giving lower indecies than those which are generally warranted. Scoring 32/34 stableford consistently points sees a h/cap either lower/remain static.

Erratic scoring is rewarded with upward movement.

I'd agree, it's with a few % margin for error. Also, the sample size of golfers will vary accordingly. Also the age profile of members, the coaching, # of rounds played, # of juniors and so on. So many variables to look at if you had the data.

One of my mates believes interclubs are a way of understanding "true" course difficulty. For example, the best club teams come from the "true" hardest courses. I don't agree with that, as being 8hc in one place does not mean you'll be a guaranteed 6hc in another easier course. Interclubs are matchplay and with foursomes, too. Some people and indeed many clubs excel in this format. Let's not mention banditry as that's another story.

I'm curious to see how some courses will be re-rated for 2025. We got assessed this year and haven't heard anything yet. A neighbouring course is rumoured to be removing a dozen plus bunkers which will significantly alter the difficulty.

Golf Ireland will be trialling an adjustment to the playing handicap system from April. It is up to individual clubs to decide if they are sticking with the current allowance or not.
Clubs may decide to reduce the allowance if they feel winning stableford scores are too high or if they want to narrow the handicap gap between low and high handicappers.

Singles options:

• Keep the current 95% of course handicap
• Reduce it to 90% or 85%
• Increase it to 100%.

Fourball options:

• Keep the current 85% of course handicap
• Reduce it to 80% or 75%
• Increase it to 90%
  

The changes won't apply to matchplay competitions.

I think WHS would serve us all a lot better if they did away with the 95% lark. Your handicap should be your handicap. Convert the index to course handicap and that should be enough. They can easily come up with a formula to incorporate a 95% or 90% already factored into the course handicap.

If it was working as well as they claimed there wouldnt be a need for this adjustment.

Obviously its not

The 95 % is alleged to make it up to the lower indices..as once it goes below 9 the 95 in negated...

There's still so little actual data being provided. The appendix C has a little - on the table of recommended handicap allowances relative to 95% to maintain equity they recommend using the 85% only when there is a higher proportion of higher handicap players in a medium sized or large sized field. To me that suggests that they've looked at the data and unless the distribution of handicaps is off balance in favour of higher handicaps, then the 95% is fair. The table also suggests that in field sizes of less than 100 where the distribution leans towards the lower handicap golfers that 100% should be used. So to me rather than switch between the three, sticking in the middle seems like the sensible path.

Based on what they're saying in the guidance too - they talk about "circumstances being observed in a club" and this being an "acutely felt issue." These don't sound like evidence based conclusions at all. They sound like conclusions from fourballs, committees, whatsapp groups, message boards, etc. That BBC article linked mentions 38m handicap scores being submitted to golf England. There is clearly plenty of evidence to understand what's going on. I suspect they do understand and that's why they're still recommending using 95% as the first option for singles competitions. But they're responding to feedback / criticism and giving this other option for clubs to use, even if they know the feedback is based on misconceptions.

I still think the biggest problem is that everyone has to play under a single handicap system (the same issue existed when we used CONGU) but want different things from it. Some people want the handicap to be a reflection of how they are playing, others want it to be a reflection of their potential. Some people want it to give everyone an equal chance of winning, some want it to give those who are of a particular standard an equal chance of winning and some want it to favour the best golfers. All of these stances are perfectly valid, but they exist in opposition to each other. And until we all think the exact same way, the handicapping system will be a bone of contention.

Well in the old system, there were much greater limits on how you could move, and most clubs controlled initial handicaps much tighter.

Some clubs now will just let the system give you your initial handicap, meaning you have young guys with starting handicaps in the 30s, when they would probably have been given 16-18 by a handicap sec. And then it couldn't move more than 1 stroke over the course of a year, outside of handicap reviews, versus 5 shots now.

So it probably makes more sense logically that there's an increase in higher handicap wins.

My club went from overall comps to category comps for weekly ones to combat this issue

yea but the 95% is daft

the course handicap should be the playing handicap. the idea that you adjust your course handicap because you are in a strokes comp, or a different country is daft. cumbersome. confusing (still is for most people). unnecessary….. just factor the 95% rule into the initial formula for everyone around the world and be done with it.

oh and the formulas used to work out handicaps are also stupid and unnecessary convoluted. they could come up with the same results using a much simpler formula.