Society Handicap
Handicaps are adjusted after every event in accordance with the score returned by a player in relation to the rest of the field.
An individual's handicap may also be adjusted as evidenced by 'General Play' and agreed by the Handicap Committee..
To view your current handicap and those of other members and guests past and present click this link: Handicaps
If you want to know more about how the new handicapping system works, and why it was necessary to introduce it, then please read the article below written by our handicap secretary Lance Tomlyn.
The Society Handicapping System
We have decided to treat the Society as if it were a fully affiliated golf club and each member has been allocated their handicap on cards that have been submitted in DGS events in the past.
The official handicapping rules state that you must submit a bare minimum of three cards before you can be allocated an official handicap. Your handicap is allocated against the BEST of those 3 cards (not the average). Before the handicap is calculated any scores of more that 2 over par on any hole are reduced to 2 over par (ie if you get a 10 on a par 4 it becomes a 6). The handicap is then simply the gross score less the par of the course.
It is generally agreed that if you have a true and fair handicap you should be able to play to it, or close to it, on average once every 5 or 6 rounds. For this reason it was decided that we should use 5 cards to calculate our handicaps as apposed to just the bare minimum of 3. This was also a convenient number as we had 6 events last year and most of the regular members played in 5 out of those 6 therefore we would be using the most recent and current scores available.
We still have all those scores so it was a fairly simple task to take the most recent 5 scores and pick out the best which is what the attached list is calculated from.
There have been some slight adjustments by the Committee which it is well within it’s rights on any of the following criteria; general play, winning far too much!, being a “bit of a bandit” !!
ADJUSTMENT OF HANDICAPS
Following on from this point the adjustment of these handicaps, unless done so by the Committee, will also follow the agreed official handicap system rules which are as follows;
If you play to a score better than your handicap (ie more than 36 stableford points) you will be cut by;
0.4 of a shot for every shot you are under your handicap – if your handicap is between 28 and 21
0.3 of a shot for every shot you are under your handicap – if your handicap is between 20 and 13
0.2 of a shot for every shot you are under your handicap – if your handicap is between 12 and 6
0.1 of a shot for every shot you are under your handicap – if your handicap is between 5 and 0
Buffer zone
If you play exactly to your handicap or up to 3 shots worse than it then your handicap will remain unchanged (ie there is a 3 shot buffer zone where nothing happens).
If you submit a score worse than 3 shots over your handicap (ie 32 stableford points or less) then you will receive point 1 of a shot back onto your handicap. This remains at point 1 of a shot whether it’s 32 or 0 points.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS?
You may say that because we are playing on courses we are not familiar with (as apposed to someone who is a member of their local golf club and plays the same course all the time) that we would be at a disadvantage however we do playing from the yellow tees, where as most club competitions are played from the white tees, and there are quite a few golf clubs that we now visit on a semi regular basis so I believe this should equal out any discrepancies.