Your New WHS Index

So much wrong with this

course handicap surely?

That’s really the wrong way to do it

I would hate to be given it too.

Well we played well and used our shots well. We have both lost shots this year, but when the new system came in we stayed the same handicap. I stayed around 9 and my playing partner stayed around 12. we were 1 under gross for 16 holes. They were -8 for 15 holes as they both scratched the first. To be fair to them it was impressive cant take that away from them.

This. It's also very sensitive to the structure of your last 20 rounds and the spread of scores therein. I think over a period - assuming no sandbagging - it's probably quite accurate but on any given day, you're handicap could be a couple of shots over/under your long term average.

You have the same handicaps from Blues and Greens due to the fact that Ireland and Great Britain decided to apply a different course handicap formula to the rest of the world. I have never seen an explanation as to why they are allowed to do this

If an American had the same slope and course ratings on his home course then he could have an extra 3 shots off the Blues

weather i assume

I think its the clubs who set the PCC for a course right? I presume there is some sort of calculation done based on the scores and the club has the option to amend PCC then? Maybe my perception of difficult conditions is off though, I'd lean towards trusting an algorithm over my opinion but that said going back through my scores there was only 2 PCC adjustments made, one was a +1 and the other a -1. There were at least 3-4 occasions where poor weather likely impacted scores that I can recall, one was a major Saturday where it rained pretty much all day as well as being windy, the bulk of the qualifiers then came from the Friday and Sunday with something like less than 10 getting in on the Saturday. No PCC correction was made which resulted in a lot of unhappy campers as you can imagine. There were a few days where conditions were so perfect I was sure there would be a -1 adjustment as well but there wasn't, if there is a calculation based on average scores then I'm happy to leave it as is.

How much did CSS vary by under the old system?

from https://www.whs.com/articles/2019/playing-conditions-calculation.html

When abnormal course or weather conditions cause scores to be unusually high or low on a given day, a Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC) will adjust Score Differentials to better reflect the player’s actual performance. This mechanism works by a statistical procedure which evaluates acceptable scores submitted each day and compares them to the expected scores of those players. The PCC is calculated automatically, so there is no additional work for players or club administrators.

Since scores made each day are used to determine if an adjustment is needed, it is important that players submit their scores on the same day of play. The PCC is designed to be conservative and generally won’t result in an adjustment unless there is strong evidence to suggest it is necessary. Adjustments will range between -1.0 (when the golf course is playing easier) and +3.0 (when conditions are more challenging) and will be applied within the Score Differential calculation.

By including a Playing Conditions Calculation, the World Handicap System recognizes that a high score in harder playing conditions may be better than a good score submitted in easier conditions. This helps to ensure that the Handicap Index of each player will continue to reflect their demonstrated ability, regardless of the conditions in which they play.

Yea I was making the point to bluenote because I don't ever recall seeing CSS more than 3 less than normal in my club - so I don't see how the old system accounted for playing conditions any differently. I know theoretically there is no lower limit like with PCC but in practice is there a difference really

IIRC category 4 players did not contribute to the CSS calculation. I can't find any details on how the PCC is calculated so perhaps it uses all players including 19+ handicappers. Maybe this has an effect of very few PCCs being other than 0.

What could possibly go wrong? 🤣

We had a local Interclub comp on here the weekend. The course it was on was rated at 95 slope and 67.2 CR.

The home team had a load of shots and won the thing by a country mile. Because this course is rated so low its extremely hard to get your handicap down, or extremely easy to get it up depending on how you want to look at it. I need to be 5 shots better on this course than my home course to get the same Score differential. now i know you could say the same for the harder courses, but i find its a lot easier to get a good round on a "hard" course than it is to get a fantastic round on a "easy" course.

A very good example of a course that needs to be reviewed for CR and Slope i think.

Yea its madness really. I could shoot 20 rounds of 36 points on this course and my handicap would go from 8 to 12 assuming no PCC adjustments. Time to go against everything i believe in and join that course haha.

I don't think we can look at 36 points as playing to your handicap any more when you have different handicaps based on the course you are playing. It would be if the course had a 'neutral' slope rating - 113, but will be different as slopes go up or down.

A more accurate way of looking at playing to your handicap is now the score differential you come out with. This takes into account the course rating and your adjusted gross score, but the slope is effectively taken out by reversing the calculation that gave you your course handicap in the first place.

I think the course you're talking about has a par of 70, so off 7 PH, you would need to be scoring about 74 for your index to stay the same. And that makes sense with the course rating being three under par.

Are many of the rounds on your home course competitions? That could account for that discrepancy maybe? I haven't played away in ages but a lot of my counting scores are in competitions, usually off the back tees as well. When I have played an away course its usually off the standard tees and not set up for a competition either.

I don't think I said the ratings aren't accurate, I said that the slope rating is really only used to calculate your handicap for the course and taken out again when calculating the score differential.

I'm saying that the course rating is what you should be looking at, if you are a low handicapper.

I'm loathe to use anecdotes as evidence of anything. In my case, half of my counting rounds are home and half are away. Those away scores are two thirds of all my away scores this year. My best two rounds are one home and one away. I've 34 counting rounds this year so far, but all my away rounds are in my last 20. I've also two other away scores that never went on my record - no idea why as they were in open comps, but would be unlikely to be in my best eight So for me, it's 4 out of 8 Vs 4 out of 12 (5 of which were 9 hole scores).

Edit: Just to clarify what I'm saying about slope ratings. There is certainly a case to review them imo as some seem to be lower than they should be and vice versa. But taking the example above, the slope rating would have to be increased to 113 or above to give a score differential approximately equal to an eight handicapper's handicap index. I can't see how that would be accurate for a course where the course rating is almost three below par.

Just on the slopes and course ratings. I know this is assessed by people with a set of criteria.

Given that we will soon have a season's data of players of all handicaps, couldn't these slopes and course ratings be recalculated based on the data? I know it won't happen, but it is possible I would have thought.

Again, anecdotally, but I find that when I'm playing a course I'm not familiar with, I'm more inclined to play conservatively and that probably helps my scoring. I'm less likely to get in trouble and lose shots as a result. At home, not so much as I'm taking shots on to try and better or equal my score on that hole and that can often lead to trouble. And looking back, I'm doing the same on away courses that I might play a second or third time; I've yet to match my first time score.