Handicap scoring made simple

[calvarycoffee]

please post your thoughts on my system. think it will work?



thinking of doing handicap scoring at our league.
this is what i've come up with:

54 is par for the course. therefore:

1st week:
score of par (54) gives the person a 0 handicap.
each stroke above or below par dictates handicap:
50 score = -4 handicap
60 score = +6 handicap

2nd week
handicaps are calculated into new scores. winners are decided based on handicaps.

3rd week and on. . .
the previous weeks scores are averaged and a new handicap is assigned.


is it too simple to work?

dave

[Craig]

I've seen something like this in ball golf. They averaged the previous 3 league nights to come up with a handicap, but they had a rule that your cap could never increae by more than 1or 2 strokes from one week to the next. If you have a really good round, you probably win and your cap drops a lot. If you have a terrible round, it keeps you from being able to sandbag next time.

[calvarycoffee]

yeah i thought about the sandbagging. it should subside after a month or so.

i wondered about where to start a "zero" handicap. should i leave it at par or start it at the lowest score. we have rounds in the 40's and a negitive handicap does sound a little awkward.

perhaps, when a new low score is reached, handicaps change accordingly?

[rehder]

As far as I understand. Standard Scratch scores for a course are based on how many throws a hcp 0 player would throw on a given course.
IE. Par at my local course is 61, but the SS is 57. Now to start of with I walked three rounds and after that the average was my hcp. I think I started with a hcp of 32. So I had played the first three rounds in an average of 89 throws.

But how do you know when a hcp 0 player walks the course? That one is kind of hard. But I think you could see how many throws very good players use on the course and make that the SS.

[MR. WICK]

A handicap is designed to level the playing field. So, a Handicap is not an average of your scores a handicap is your potential. you could check out pdga and see if they have a system establised already, or do some research and see what others are using. I know a lot about it in terms of ball golf (I was a golf pro for 3 yrs and took a bunch of classes on this) and could help you there but I am not sure how it's officially done for disc golf.

[superq]

we run a handi scratch league every wednesday night. the handicaps are kept the way you described where basicly every wednesday night round for the year is averaged for you. We added a scratch division becuase those of us that shoot well and consistantly had no chance to compete with the new players that are capeable of a 10-20 stroke swing any night.

Seems to be working well, usually a different mix in the cash each week.

[Luckyg71]

I play in a league where we have a handicap. Sandbagging will only work for a couple of weeks, the score will eventually catch up, unless someone shoots a 20 over one week and then a 5 under each week.

I think it is fun, I can compete with pros. We only did it on one course last year but this next year I think we are going to handicap a couple of courses and play more. We migth even have a Saturday Handicap Tourney.

[Terrence]

We alternate three courses my local league. I'm sure this particular handicap system is tailored to the course we play, but the system goes as follows:

Each course is 24 holes, par 72. A gross score of -10 produces a 0 handicap. The player's handicap is 80% of however many throws above -10. So if you shot even par your handicap is 8. The top players on the league consistantly finish 8 to 12 under par so this balances well with the bottom players (me). I've been down to 16 hcp but I'm back to 19 now.

[TexasOutlaw]

I think it's great that y'all try to balance things out to include players of all levels. Down here they entice you to join them by offering a rec division, yet make everyone play in the same division without a handicap to have a bigger pay out.

[TheUberDork]

The handicap league here is run like this.
The handicap is based on a 14 under.
You get your handicap after your 2nd round.
Your handicap is the average score of your last 4 weeks.

So on a par 54 course handicap would be based on a 40
If your last 4 scores were 49, 47, 52, 45... your 4 week average is 48.25
so your handicap would be an 8.
then if you shoot a 40 the next week you would be at . 40, 49, 47, 52 and an average of 47 and handicap of 7.
so on and so forth.

It worked pretty well. Tonight was our last handicap league of the year so we handed out all the year tropheys and played the last round.
We start in spring. Have a tournament in the fall for the handicap championship (you must have 2 league night rounds in prior), and then play a few more weeks after that... this year we had 23 weeks.