World Handicapping System - 2020 (next year!)

[johnny canuck]

You are right, it is the floating index over the 8 rounds that count that create the low index, not one round. The h/c system we use kind of confused me about that.
I have read it, and I still do not understand the intent. Please elucidate.

Your lowest handicap index, as in your lowest handicap is the reference point for the caps, not your lowest played to.

For example, if you got your handicap down to a 10, for the next 365 days, the highest your cap can go out to is 15. If your cap went out to 13, you are 3 strokes above your low point, so you are now soft capped. This means that your score can only increase at 50% of the normal rate that it would.


Copied and pasted from a site we use in order to put some method to the madness:

• The Hard Cap eliminates the capacity for extreme outward movements of a GA Handicap within short spaces of time.
• As a result, a loss of form does not cause a player’s GA Handicap to move too far from a level which is consistent with their underlying ability.
• The Hard Cap also makes the handicap system less susceptible to manipulation.
• See Part C for information on the new Soft Cap regulation. Under the WHS, a GA Handicap will continue to increase at the rate of 100% of the ‘8 of 20 scores’ calculation UNTIL it reaches 3 strokes above its best point from the previous 12 months. Once in this new Soft Cap zone, a player’s GA Handicap will only be allowed to increase by 50% of the calculated amount.

[ARL67]

^^^ Interesting, I did not know about the Soft Cap.

I recall I had my Low Index down into 3.x by last fall.
This was mainly based on playing a LOT over the last several years, many rounds at one particular course, and this course is not too penal on mistakes, greatly suited my eye, and I still got in some good range time to keep my dialed in.

This season my round count is down by 40%, very little range time, I no longer play the above easier course, and am playing at a much more difficult course. My scores are now typically 8-14 over par , and I haven't sniffed at a mid 70's score in quite a while.

Golf Canada now has my Low Index at 4.7 and my Index at 8.0.
Looking at the 8 applied differentials just now, they would average at 8.2 ( 8.1875 ). So I'm in that Soft Cap Zone where 0.2 is being "with-held" from my Index.

[rulie]

See the link below,

https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/softcaphardcap_detailed.pdf

[wlorcb]

The PDF says it all in the second line. Maybe better players experience a loss of form that the caps help against by not making the h/c rise too much, but this does nothing for the rest of us. If we have a few abnormally great games, we are stuck with that for the next year instead of being able for those games to drop off within 20 rounds and our h/c to get back to what it normally is.

[OKHC]

Hi wl, duly noted. In the past two years, since the WHS was implemented, has your index ever been limited by the caps?

[wlorcb]

Hi wl, duly noted. In the past two years, since the WHS was implemented, has your index ever been limited by the caps?

I'm nearly up against it right now. I used to love when I played a great week and my h/c dropped, but I knew that when I went back to playing normally, that those would gradually drop off.

[wlorcb]

I currently do not have a GAO number, and the system that our club uses to book times has a h/c calculator. I know it is using the old system because it is counting 10 of 20.
I was sent an Excel spreadsheet to use the new system, which I have not started yet. I was perusing the USGA site to glance at the WHS.

I was wondering what the rational was for the exceptional score reduction was. If you shoot 10 lower than your current index, all of your last 20 scores get a reduction of 2 to be re-used in the h/c calculation. I understand that, but it says that the score that got you to that point also gets a reduction of 2, so instead of shooting 10 below, it now says it is 12 below. Why?

[OKHC]

Hi wl, I guess one way of looking at the situation is: say your index is 13.0 at 8 a.m. on Friday. You play at 8:15 a.m., and post a differential of 2.8 into the handicap system at 1:00 p.m. (I picked 2.8 because it is obviously more than 10 better than your index). The system then looks at your last 20 scores, (and Friday's score is clearly the 20th of your last 20), and subtracts 2 from each of those scores, then re-calculates your index. (Those exceptional score reductions appear in columns AK and AL, on the 'Handicap Calc' tab, in the spreadsheet that I sent to you).