Having played socially there recently with someone whose score did count and was handed in, it was a total farce. Any putts within 6 ft given by himself (not me i expected him to putt out) , once he hit score equiv to 2 pts he picked up and gave himself 2 pts! And he hit off wherever blocks he felt approp on the day making me hit off blokes tees because i drove longer than him….that system is seriously flawed as was his hcap. Imo we should never incl social rounds in hcap because this is what can happen. However i forgave him all due to the cost of the day which he bore totally as the club had no cash registers and could only deduct from members acct which was $20k per year, joining fee 200k. Top bloke :-)

Imo we should never incl social rounds in hcap because this is what can happen.

+1

AAA

However, I have never been convinced that the USGA’s ‘all scores count’ philosophy really works.

I am happy to accept that this is as far as you are likely to go AAA.

The ‘philosophy’ is, on the one hand, fanciful and on the other, fascism in practice (and in the land of the free as well!).

To get to the point:

Your statement crystallises the essence of this dilemma.

First, it may be said that ‘the rules of golf DO NOT cover social golf (in a general sense).

Second, it may be said that ‘the rules of golf DO cover social play by players who ‘sign-up for a particular handicapping system’.

Both statement can be, and in my view, are TRUE.

However, the second is the tail and the first the dog, and to generalise from the second to the first is to claim that the tail should wag the dog: and no dog likes that!

And what sort of ‘obligation’ would that be?

It is entirely reasonable for persons wishing to operate within a system to be required to comply with the conditions of that system. You may not have noticed that on February 20 I acknowledged that the Rules of Golf apply (also) to a ‘player’ who wishes to submit a card for handicap purposes.

Any other quasi ‘obligation’ purportedly imposed upon social golfers is a joke.

Incidentally, the system to which you refer is probably the silliest piece of policy ever introduced to a game of sporting and recreational endeavour.

http://www.rogamania.blogsp…

The obligation is one imposed by the player on himself when he signs up for a USGA handicap.

However, I have never been convinced that the USGA’s ‘all scores count’ philosophy really works.

What other rules are we not playing by?

When the idea was floated in Australia there was quite a hullabaloo . The majority of club golfers & administrations are totally against the idea of Social rounds being acceptable for handicap purposes. It makes it far too easy for the dishonest golfer to rort the system

I’m not entirely clear about just what is happening in Australia at the moment. The implementation all seems rather confused.

Are social rounds being counted? Has the competition based system gone completely?

AAA, social rounds are not counted. Only scores in competitions are taken into account.
There are a few exceptions for one’s initial handicap but, after that, it’s all comps.

What suggested to you that we don’t do comps any more?

I have always understood that both the CONGU (UK) and European Golf Association’s systems were based on the original (competition only) Australian system.

Then a year or so ago there was a great buzz on this site re a new Australian system based on the USGA system, which of course requires all rounds to be recorded.
Susequently there seems to have been much comment about delays in full implementation.

I had the feeling that I had seen references to matchplay and 4BBB scores. Perhaps I’ve misread it all.

AAA the implementation of the USGA was IMO a mistake. However , now that we have it we have to make the best of it.
There are a couple of versions going around about how GA decided to take the system rather than fix the old system, so not quite sure what to believe. I do know that the board at GA was radically changed at the last AGM.
It seems to me that the present administration is still struggling to work out what parts of the system should be put in place.
There was at one stage the intent to put in place handicapping of social rounds. I think the Negative feedback (extremely loud ) put a stop to this.
The system when first introduced was reported by many in the game to strongly favour longer handicaps & again after lots of strong feedback the system was changed a little to try and level the playing field. I,m not sure that they have got it quite right yet.
they are also ( I believe ) going to introduce Slope,A daily course rating system and a base stableford scoring system that will be used for handicapping purposes. Not quite sure why it is taking so long .
Maybe they are worried about more negative feedback & wish to hold it down to small doses

Thank Pom.

Where is the best place to find out what it is exactly as opposed what it was supposed to be?

AAA

Having played socially there recently with someone whose score did count and was handed in, it was a total farce. Any putts within 6 ft given by himself (not me i expected him to putt out) ,

And that produces what is called a vanity hcp. Love to meet those folks for some $’s or in a tournament.

I have hcps in OZ and US and see advantages to both. Slope and Index are far superior to one hcp for all courses let alone tees. I can play my sons from shorter tees (they play the tips) and have reasonable games

Comps only are far better, but the USGA does have a protection for “tournament scores”. I had a friend who had some great tournaments, but developed cancer and was failing. About two years after his great year he found his index was reduced by 5 strokes because the good tournament scores are held longer than the best 10 of last 20 (8 of last 20 for OZ).

For him it was unfair as the index is listed as, say, 8.2, and at the bottom is defined as “tournament reduction”. It made it appear as if he was sandbagging. Since in the US you can look up scores by just knowing their name the whole explanation is laid out: index 13.2, but minus 5 thus and so tournament scores = 8.2.

Thank Pom.

Where is the best place to find out what it is exactly as opposed what it was supposed to be?

What other rules are we not playing by?

I would think the best place would be Golf Australia if you can sort out the in’s, out’s & maybe’s. Other than that , someone better at the written word than I . Plus I am slightly Biased.
When I heard that change was coming I read up on the US system plus the European & Congu handicap Systems.
to my mind the choice was obvious but as rogaman has posted a small minority railroaded through a change to the US system and the present administration & Australian golfers have been left with a mess to clean up.

Steb

You are seriously confused.

There is a difference between breaching a rule or local rule in a competition and exhibiting the same behaviour in a practice hit or social game.

To take just one of your examples, if a player is detected playing from compulsory GUR in a competition he will incur a two stroke penalty under the Rules. If he is detected doing the same thing when playing by himself (having a few hits) it is complete nonsense to imagine that he will somehow incur a two stroke penalty. He may well be asked to meet with the committee, and receive a reprimand or a small holiday from the club, but to impose a two stroke penalty would be ludicrous (real Monty Python stuff).

The same can be said about playing from a wrong green with a 4 iron or any other situation you may describe. The rules, as such, simply do not apply to social golf unless the players agree.

What does apply to all golf is etiquette and responsible behaviour. Competition golf is controlled by the committee responsible for the competition; member behaviour is controlled by the committee responsible for the club – they may be the same body, but wearing different hats.

To summarise: There is, WITHIN THE RULES, no penalty of suspension from the club for playing from compulsory GUR in a competition, and there is no penalty of two strokes for the same ‘offence’ when a player is not playing in a competition.

http://www.rogamania.blogsp…

You’re so far off track I suspect this post will fly over as well. But I’ll try, it might just click.

If you tee off from the clubhouse verandah, telling all the puzzled souls that it’s ok because you’re playing social golf won’t cut it. You won’t be told it’s a club policy not to tee off from the verandah. You won’t be told it’s against the law. You’ll be told to go to play from a teeing ground because that’s what golf is. If you argue, you’ll be shown the rule book. If you say but the book is only for competition golf, you’ll be laughed at.

The rules define the game, penalties are just part of it. It’s the rules that tell us that golf uses a bat and a ball of certain characteristics, not a cricket bat and volleyball. It is the rules that make golf different than croquet. It is the written that have ensured the game played socially today resembles that played socially 200 years ago and continues to be called golf. No-one has to stick by everything in the Rule book, not even in competition, but is it only for competition golf—no way!

Pom gets it exactly: The book is called “The Rules of Golf”, not the “Penalties of Golf”.

Get enforced by whom exactly Steb?
Many of your examples eg playing the course backwards, wrong green have been done by many including me at very quiet times and hurt nobody. It is actually fun!

If you ask yourself why you do it only at very quiet times, you will see that it is the Rule book that defines how the game is to be played both socially and in competition.

Steb

Judging by your comments you take golf very seriously.

I play by all the rules when playing in a handicapped round.

The rules are there to provide equity to all players in competition.

If 4 players in a group are playing a social round (ie not handicapped) the only thing that is important is there is equity for the group.

If they want to allow “mulligans” once per hole and free drops from divots and conceded putts within a putter length then they have equity.

Nobody gets hurt, sure they have their own rules but they are having fun in their own competition. Providing they are not delaying other groups who is it hurting?

Golf is a game and is supposed to be fun. It might not be your version of fun.

You do not have to take golf serious at all in order to play by at least some basic Rules, and unless the basics are followed, IMO golf stops being fun and turns into arguing and discussion.

The old ( very rewritten) story about this goes:
A new guy in the club joined three players, and he watched them lift the ball to a better lie, move the ball without penalty and play from outside the teeing ground.
On the third hole he was in the bunker in a bad lie, he picked it up and threw it out onto the fairway.
“Hey”, they said, “you can’t do that!”, and his question was simply, “why not?”

I like playing by the Rules, that makes golf fun for me, not serious, but it doesn’t bother me one bit if others do something different.

Rules is golf just as much as the game itself.

Shanks, the whole point is that you are playing by the rules. They may be your rules & somewhat modified from those in the book but they are still rules that you play by. No doubt most of them would be the basic rules that appear in the book. If you are going to play a game with other people then of course there have to be rules. And someone to speak up if they see one of those rules broken. When we play competition of course we must play by the rules in the Book & any further local rule.
If you do not follow even the basic rules then the game you are playing is not called Golf!

We follow the basic rules when playing social golf, we follow all the rules when playing handicapped competition golf.

Ambrose is golf but not played by all the ROG, it is a novelty event that has appeal when played sparingly. You don’t get to place a ball one club length from where it lays under the ROG but you do it in ambrose just as on the putting green you can’t place it a putter head away.

It is a fun event not played by all the ROG.

AAA

I may write something about this one day.

It has been a fiasco from the beginning, beset by corruption and incompetence.

Basically, the proponents of the system engineered a coup de’etat against the majority who did not want a bar of the US system.

The system may never be fully introduced or we may end up with a (botched) amalgam of two systems. Who knows.

The (previous) CCR system was empirical and elegant.

http://www.rogamania.blogsp…

Simon I am still seeing a large advantage to longer handicappers. this is OK in larger clubs where events can be graded but where small fields are the norm it is difficult to seperate them into 2 or 3 grades.
I agree that ESC should help although many clubs are now playing a vast majority of stableford type competitions anyway. The introduction of a daily rating system will also help.
But when you look at all the problems that the introduction of the US system has caused & then read about the systems that Britain and Europe use, it is difficult to understand why the US system was chosen in the first place.

Politics and conflict of interest situations would explain how we ended up with the US system.

2 states wanted it the rest did not, GA went with the powerful minority who had the loudest voices.

Interesting that most of that GA board is now gone.

The system still favours longer handicap players who are very inconsistent. The anchor was a good idea imo.

Politics and conflict of interest situations would explain how we ended up with the US system.

2 states wanted it the rest did not, GA went with the powerful minority who had the loudest voices.

Interesting that most of that GA board is now gone.

The system still favours longer handicap players who are very inconsistent. The anchor was a good idea imo.

Play it as it lies, get on with it, its not life or death, its just a game!

Not seeing this at all in my club. Would be interested to know what stats G.A. have on the winning scores in each grade since their latest change.I’m certainly a longer handicapper these days but my scores are actually very consistent.

Simon I am still seeing a large advantage to longer handicappers. this is OK in larger clubs where events can be graded but where small fields are the norm it is difficult to seperate them into 2 or 3 grades.
I agree that ESC should help although many clubs are now playing a vast majority of stableford type competitions anyway. The introduction of a daily rating system will also help.
But when you look at all the problems that the introduction of the US system has caused & then read about the systems that Britain and Europe use, it is difficult to understand why the US system was chosen in the first place.

http://www.golflink.com.au/...

It is more likely that a high handicapper will win a comp that a low handicapper because there are usually significantly more high handicappers in the field.

The chances of an individual high capper winning are significantly lower than an individual low capper

http://www.congu.com/Myth%2...

It is more likely that a high handicapper will win a comp that a low handicapper because there are usually significantly more high handicappers in the field.

The chances of an individual high capper winning are significantly lower than an individual low capper

http://www.congu.com/Myth%2…

What other rules are we not playing by?

AAA, Whilst I do not doubt those figures,they would be affected by the types of comps played. Lower markers will always score better in relation to the field in stroke competitions. However in clubs where 75% or more of the comps are single stableford the results will tend to shape the other way.