Sandbagging, cheating and negligent handicapping discouraging club golfers

A golfer setting up for a tee [Courtesy]

Golf is the only sport that has a unique balancing system that makes it possible for golfers of different abilities, age and gender to compete against each other. Unfortunately, the now omnipresent cases of cheating and dishonesty, coupled with dereliction of duty by handicap managers, has resulted in submission of fake high scores that even Tiger Woods would not dream of, and is slowly killing the sport. 

Unless sanity is brought back to amateur golf, the sport is in danger of losing popularity due to apathy by the large number of golfers who now have no chance of standing on the podium due to the malady of bloated handicaps and wrong handicap management.

The biggest news in the world of golf last month was the proposed creation of a Unified Golf Handicapping system. The existence of two main h­­­andicapping systems in a sport that is now totally global is anomalous but not unexpected. 

The USGA system is used in the USA and Mexico, while the R&A system is used in Europe, Asia, Africa; basically everywhere else in the world.  

Those of us who have golfed longer that the space shuttle has been in existence will remember the smaller 1.62-inch diameter British golf ball. The USGA mandated a bigger 1.68-inch diameter ball, a difference of only 1.6millimeters, but one that was hotly contested in deciding which would be the official PGA ball to be used in international competitions.

That 3.7% difference translates to 7.5 less wind resistance, thus the small ball flew further. The British ball lost the war and is now illegal.  A similar disagreement still unresolved today is on redesigning the golf ball to fly a shorter distance as more course are being rendered obsolete by the long driving equipment and faster swing combination of today's best golfers. The USGA is ready to change the rule, but the R&A is dragging its feet. 

Similarly, the stingy R&A limits the value of amateur prizes arising from shooting a hole in one to 500 British pounds, while the USGA recently removed any such limits. An Amateur can now take home that BMW at Vetlabs Golf Club and still retain amateur status. Derek Lawrenson, the Sunday Telegraph correspondent and eight handicap amateur who won a Lamborghini in 1998, was only able to keep the supercar by ostensibly “turning Pro” for several years.

 

Until this year, the two ruling bodies had failed to agree on a common Handicap system. Under the guise of preserving tradition, the R&A has maintained that all handicaps are equal and disregarded the differences in the courses where these handicaps are based.

 

The USGA, on the other hand, recognises that all courses are not the same and thus has developed a concept called Slope Rating that compares the difference in courses by comparing differences in factors like length of the course, obstacles in play, width of fairways et cetera. 

Even right here at home, some Handicaps from certain clubs are deemed more generous than those from others. The proposed Unified World Handicap System is nothing other than the USGA finally imposing its more sensible Slope Rating system to the rest of the world and linking them for comparison and conversion.

 

Your handicap will now change when playing on different courses and from different tees. But will this Slope rating solve the incessant quarrels and arguments at Kenya Golf clubs as amateurs question the Handicaps of fellow competitors amidst accusations of sandbagging and commercial handicaps?

 

To answer that question, we need to diagnose the problem. 

 

Twenty or so years ago, winning score in the stableford system used to be in the 35 to 38 points range. These days, it has risen to the 41 to 45 range. For example, the winning scores at the Kenya Open amateur qualifying rounds so far, have been 42, 44, 45, and 45 points respectively. Comparatively, these new scores are simply insane.

Exceeding 40 was sacrilegious and was punished with a big chop of the handicap to level the field. Something has since gone awry.

Handicap in golf is an abstract method that aims at equalising or leveling the field such that golfers of different abilities, ages and gender can compete fairly such that any one of them has an equal chance to win.

By definition, a golfer’s Handicap is a measure of her best potential, not the average as most amateurs assume. This score should only be achieved or exceeded not more that 25 percent of the time.

Thus, a regular weekend golfer should only be able to achieve it only one out of four Saturdays. The amount by which it can be exceeded by is also limited.

But how can people of such a diverse range be made equal in a sport? It’s not like sending a Sportspesa entry.

The term handicapping is the same one you find in horse racing.  A handicap race in horse racing is a one in which horses carry different weights, allocated by the handicapper. A better horse will carry a heavier weight, to give it a disadvantage when racing against slower horses.

You can also think of it as a 1000-metre race between a regular jogger and Usain Bolt. Straight up, the regular recreation jogger has no hope of beating Usain Bolt since he can only run that distance in 12.5 seconds at his best, while Bolt does it in 9.8 seconds, a difference of 2.7 seconds.

What if we wanted to see who, on a particular day, is in a better form?

You would have to level the playing ground by establishing a system whereby, if both runners did their usual, they would both finish at the same moment and result in a tie. One way of doing this is to assign Bolt to run uphill! A more practical one is to let the jogger start running 2.7 seconds ahead of Bolt.

You could also find out how many meters the jogger could run in 9.8 seconds and set his starting point ahead of Bolt by the difference between 100meters and that distance, say 33meters. They would finish the run at the same moment. That is the simplest way to describe Handicapping

The jogger’s handicap would be 2.7 seconds, or 33 meters, depending on the system you adopt. The person who runs just slightly better than his usual best, by even a fraction of a second, would win the race.  

In a race held in Jamaica, cheeky Prince Harry beat Usain Bolt by awarding himself a sneaky early start Handicap. Obviously, an 18 handicapper beating a 7 handicapper does not mean the former is better than the latter.

 But handicapping has provided an opportunity for them to compete by leveling the field, and a forum to spend five hours enjoying this great game together. That is the whole point of handicapping in amateur golf.  

Scoring under the stableford system follows the same principle but slightly differently. A golfer’s Handicap is a measure of her potential, which is related to her best scores.

In an ideal world, a zero-handicap golfer would play a standard 18-hole course in 72 strokes. Most amateurs play in the range of 80 to 100 strokes. The difference in that score and 72 is defined as the golfer's Handicap.

Thus a 15 handicapper is expected to shoot a gross score of 87 points, (72+15) in a strokeplay competition. His result for any other day is calculated as total strokes minus handicap. Thus shooting 92 would result in a 77 strokes score.  In theory, if everybody in the field played to their handicap, everybody would score 72.

This is why golf is said to offer an equal chance to everybody. The golfer who shoots slightly better than his best, maybe by one or two strokes, would beat the field.  

The Stableford system does it slightly differently. Each hole is its own competition for each golfer. A scratch golfer would score two points for each hole that he plays according to the designed score, or par, for that hole.

Thus shooting four on a par four would earn him two points. Five would earn him one point and is said to be one over par, a bogey.

Anything above that earns nothing. Similarly, three would earn him three points and is called playing under par, a birdie. Two under par is called an eagle while three under is an albatross and is as rare as the eponymous bird.

A popular eagle is holing out in one stroke on a Par three, the popular but elusive hole-in-one, an unpredictable bird that has been known to elude some of the best golfers throughout their golfing career, yet pay a visit to a real hacker.

Those who achieve it never forget because as they celebrate the feat, they also suffer the honor of buying everybody at the club a drink. The bar tab can be hefty especially on a Saturday. Time to think Golf Insurance, just in case?

For the regular golfer, the Weekend Warrior, the system allocates the golfers handicap as an extra stroke to the par for the most difficult holes, equal to his Handicap. Thus, for a Seven-Handicapper, an extra stroke would be added to the par of the most difficult seven holes.

 For example, Hole number 3 which is rated the sixth most difficult and thus awarded a Stroke Index of 6, while written Par 4 on the card, becomes Par 5 for him. Therefore, shooting 5, an extra stroke over par, would still earn him two points.

In theory everybody would score 36 points in a full round, which is 18 holes multiplied by two points for each hole. Which then brings in the big question: if our handicaps here are accurate and current, as would be expected since most of our golfers play regularly and handicaps updated, where are these 42 to 45 points scores being reported coming from?

I am posing this question to KGU, Club Captains and handicap managers. Neither the intention and concept, nor the CONGU rules for calculating handicaps have changed. The procedure for adjusting the handicap as a new score is added has not changed either. CONGU even calls for an annual review of handicaps, subjectively and manually if necessary.

As it is now, the attempt to level the field has tilted completely to one side and heavily favours high Handicappers. Single and teen handicappers no longer have a chance of winning club competitions. It is hard enough playing to your handicap, which gives you 36.  The odds of scoring anything above 40 points are significantly small.

According to the USGA Chart for Probabilities of Exceptional Scores (Google it), the odds of a golfer in the 6 to 12.9 Handicap range shooting 4 under is one in 51, which is arguably what one would expect of a golfer having a good day as would happen once a year. Anything better than 1 in 300 is almost impossible. 

To score 45 points, a nine handicapper would have to play level par to the course, a 1 in 28,000 odd: meaning impossible! That is simple logic. Nobody can shoot 9 strokes better than their best score. 

Yet every Monday in the weekend round up of tournaments, we read of scores in the 43-45 range sometimes by the same persons within a month. Naysayers who point at PGA tour Pro golfer's scoring in the upper single digits conveniently ignore that these super golfers carry plus handicaps, thus a Pro with a plus 7 handicap shooting 9 under the course par, is just playing two under.

A recent post had a former captain winning with 44 points, the lady winner with 43 points and each of the nines were won with 22 points. Stableford Amateur winners in the Kenya Open qualifying rounds all won with scores exceeding 40: 42, 43, 45 and 45 points. This is handicapping gone haywire. 

I must have missed the memo declaring this the new winning. I beg to dispute these scores and handicaps.

According to CONGU, if you have shot above 40 points several times recently, you are playing off a wrong handicap. Simple and clear. It stands to reason that if you are hitting over 40 frequently, sometimes hitting 45, you are cheating knowingly. Your score should be rejected and disqualified, per the rules.

Why is this happening now, but did not twenty years ago and why are these scores being upheld? Clearly, something is out of whack. The field is totally biased and only high handicappers are winning, week in week out. Our Handicap Managers seem to have lost the plot and the raison d’etre for handicapping. Even if CSS and SSS modifiers, which are never too far from 72, are considered, seven to nine stroke under is simply outrageous.

The handicap managers are not chopping enough strokes from blatantly inflated scores.  The target in handicapping is to have everybody shoot 72 strokes Net or score 36 points in Stableford.

Club golfers know something is wrong, but can't figure out what since they are always told the handicaps are according to CONGU. Their displeasure and frustration is displayed by the calls, “Chop! Chop!” whenever scores above 40 are announced, and many are left with a sour taste in their mouth as they feel robbed of a win.

 Low and mid handicappers are totally frustrated because as it is now, they can never win. If this trend continues, these golfers will get discouraged and stop entering competitions, further suffocating what we are already being told is a dying sport.  

Some conniving club golfers are not blameless either. As much as handicapping is meant to level the playing field, it is a concept that is too easy to game or rig, hence the need for manual interventions sometimes. 

Despite whatever score the player and marker sign off, the captain has the power to drastically chop suspicious handicap and disqualify suspicious scores.

They should not shy off from doing that or act helpless, then blame CONGU. All they need to do is apply the powers vested on them under the rules of golf, to tame such bandits who are playing off a wrong handicap or cheating.

Rule 34-1b imposes disqualification for a golfer who, “returned a score card on which he had recorded a handicap that, before the competition closed, he knew was higher than that to which he was entitled”.

This rule is intended to discipline golfers who try to game the system by claiming that they are playing off their last known or posted handicap, cheating, or colluding with their markers.  It is not clear whether Captains are unaware of the rule or are reluctant to apply it.

It is obvious that a golfer who has been playing and improving over say, a year, or has been playing elsewhere but not returning winning to his handicapping Club to avoid a chop, as he “times” a competition, certainly knows that his handicap has improved and is cheating by pretending it is current.

He therefore should be disqualified when found out, as would happen if he returns such an insane score. A Handicap that is years old cannot be valid even if it is the last known.

Maybe some golf unions are unaware that they are not strictly tied down to CONGU and can introduce improvements.

Some of them employ a time-based handicap reduction method, where a 0.5 stroke per month is chopped from a high handicap golfer who does not play that month, up to a 75% limit for high handicappers.

Similarly rates of 0.2 and 0.3 are applied for single and teen handicappers respectively. South Africa’s SAGA has experimented with various tweaks to their handicap system.

One is borrowed from USGA’s GHIN method, an online score entry method through which golfers enter their hole-by-hole scores immediately after play.

SAGA has gone a step further and requires that a golfer must swipe their club membership card before they head to the first tee.

The golfer also must swipe again to record their score at the end of the round. Failure to record a score earns one an automatic handicap reduction. The Club Pro and peer monitors, ensure this is done. 

This internet based method has worked very well in taming banditry and ridiculous results. 

It’s not easy catching sandbaggers though, as they will try each and every trick to maintain an artificially bloated Handicap.

This is one reason why golfers are encouraged to bet and place wagers. A golfer who tries such a trick will soon discover he has become his partners’ ATM. What ever happened to the respect and bragging rights earned by achieving as low a handicap as possible? Are golf bags and such prizes worth cheating? You impress no one when you win by cheating.

Other golfers notice that your handicap has stuck in the upper 20s, five years after you started golfing. Managing your handicap, or sandbagging it is called.

Thankfully, sandbaggers are easy to spot. They are always in the running for prizes despite the 25 per cent frequency rule.

Come on! Even if the maximum 4 strokes allowed for exceptional performance beyond one’s handicap is allowed, for a maximum 40 points, it’s simple math to work out that a golfer who returns 45 strokes has "managed" a 5-stroke buffer into his handicap. Any other golfer with a true handicap can never beat this crook.

 That is the situation we now have in Kenya. Unfortunately, instead of the other golfers calling for the rejection of such suspect scores, they try to figure out how they can also score those 45 points, and eventually bloat their handicaps.

It becomes a vicious cycle. One that has raised the winning scoring zone from 36-40, to 41-45. 

 A huge number of our golfers have done this hence the insane scores we see in the papers every week. What a shame. The fact that they are all "uniformly" cheating does not make it right. Tell a UK golfer that you shot 43 points and they will look at your face like you have a horn on your forehead!

Last but almost anathema to imagine happening in golf is cheating. Everybody blames everyone else for cheating except themselves, so who is doing it? Be wary: your one finger is pointing at them, but their many fingers are pointing at you! Whether intentionally or out of ignorance, cheating is simply not acceptable in golf.

It is the requirement of every golfer to know the rules and understand situations where a penalty stroke is supposed to be levied. Not doing so is cheating. Neither a golfer nor a marker is allowed to waive a rule of golf. If found out, both are disqualified.

We are talking of integrity here. When you joined golf, you signed in to follow its rules strictly, not to only follow the ones that suit you or to create your own.

Golf is defined as a game played by Ladies and gentlemen. You are even supposed to report any of your own infractions that your marker may not have observed. Integrity is a must. At the Kenyan Safari Golf Club in New York, everybody marks his own scorecard. They have full trust in each other’s integrity when golfing.

That integrity extends into real life, a big reason why many parents introduce their kids to golf. Cheats have no place in golf.  

A cheat in golf is a cheat in life and should be shunned like the plague. If you notice other golfers avoiding betting with you, or telling you that their fourball is full, even when you can only see two of them, you need to step back and do check your handicap. 

Will the new Worldwide Unified Handicap system that will be introduced in 2020 solve these problems? Will it resolve this handicapping bias towards high handicappers or the insane scores, and the resulting acrimony? Sadly, it won’t.

Our problems are of a different nature and require a different kind of medicine.  If the current CONGU system is not working due to abuse, cheating and mismanagement of handicaps, even the new system will not work! That's a no-brainer. So, what can be done now to resolve this cancer?

 Section 23 of the CONGU handicap manual, which is available online for free, dictates that an Annual Review be carried out for all handicaps.

I am pretty certain this is not being done at most clubs. Otherwise we would be hearing thousands of groans the week after. This review is an essential part of the handicapping process. According to Section 23.1, it is "an audit procedure whereby the Handicap Committee assesses annually the handicaps of all Members so that it is satisfied that players’ handicaps reflect, as far as practicable, their current playing abilities." 

The KGU needs to set a date for annual reviews to be carried out at all golf clubs in the country. In the meantime, individual clubs should do an interim review immediately.

This review is not just for chopping handicaps, but also for increasing it for those who have consistently been unable to play to their handicaps.

Table 20.6 indicates the rate at which chops are applied. For example, handicaps in the 20.5 to 28 Handicaps have a buffer of 4 strokes, and thus any score up to 40 will not trigger a chop. However, scores above that, are chopped at the rate of 0.5 times the number of strokes above 36. Note: above 36, not above the buffer.

I suspect this is the mistake our Handicap Managers have been making. Hence, the 24 Handicap golfer who scored 45 points last week will be chopped 3.6 strokes, while the 18 handicapper who shot 43 points will go down 2.7 strokes.

 Handicap Managers should not be timid with chops, hoping that the handicap will slowly go down to its level: it won’t.

The reason being that CONGU only adds 0.1 strokes for every bogey and worse. Remember, CONGU looks at the results hole-by-hole, not just the net score, which is easily rigged. A snowman on one hole should not be counted since it will bloat a handicap. 

We are so tired of these 45 pointers! At least one club, Muthaiga, seems to get it right. Just the other week, their winning score under relatively difficult course conditions resulted in the winner and runner-up tying at 34 points. That makes sense.

 Elsewhere it would have been in the 40s. If you have returned a score in the 40s any time in the last one year, you played off a wrong handicap, one that is higher than your real one, and your handicap should have been chopped such that the new handicap would yield 36 points on that same number of strokes.

This is the only way to bring back sanity to amateur golf. The 40-plus point scores being announced every week are bogus, delusional, and sadly, a condoned sham. 

The newspapers tell the culprits are plentiful.  Until our golf unions and handicap managers get handicapping right, the playing field shall never be level and golf shall slowly discourage and chase away the same better amateur golfers that we are forward to producing a homegrown Kenya Open Golf Championship winner.