why only 3/4 handicap?

[mariner]

When you're playing 2v2, better ball match play, why is the handicap allowance only 3/4 and not the full difference?

[BrianW]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

In 4B BB the handicaps are taken from the lowest handicap player who has to play scratch golf. It is seen to be unfair that this player should then give full handicap difference to the other three. 3/4 difference is used as a method to balance it out.

[mariner]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

I played with a 26 h/c against another 26 and a 20 this morning and we won easily because there were 12 holes we played off level (I'm 14) and if I play to my h/c I'll win most of those, I did and we won 5&4 - doesn't seem fair to me.

[slater170]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

thank god for this years club singes asits the only time i get to play off my full handicap

that being said i played in a 4BBB comp yesterday and scored 37 points off 3/4 handicap

[BrianW]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

The two 26 would have 9 shots each, the 20 would have 5 and you would play scratch.

Team 1 handicaps:

0
9

Team 2 handicaps:

9
5

That should be OK?

[john.coleshill@ntlwo]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

Lots of interesting arguements around on this subject at the moment as there seems to be a general move towards playing full handicap differential , also seems to be a move away from 3/4 or 7/8 handicap allowance for stableford competitions.....Is there any truth that the R and A are stipulating that comps must be run with full handicap allowances ?

Anyway for what it's worth here is my opinion.....

Handicaps "generally" are determined from stroke play events where EVERY shot counts......

In matchplay a hole is only ever won by 1 stroke , consequently a higher handicap player is likely to lose holes during a match by 2 or more strokes without being penalised.

Likewise in stableford competitions the higher the handicap the more likely that shots will be played without suffering any penalty/consequence...eg net double bogey equals same 0 points as net quadrouple bogey.

Evidently then , to my mind , until we abolish all forms of competition apart from medal / medal matchplay we need to retain some form of handicap fractionalisation to keep the lower handicap player interested.

I for one would not relish playing medal ever week together with the 5/6 hour rounds involved so long live 3/4 7/8 handicaps.

[BrianW]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

The following link takes you to the CONGU site that explains current handicap differentials and makes the arguments for the change in singles.

http://www.congu.com/template1.asp?pid=26

[GreeBoman]

Re: why only 3/4 handicap?

I believe the reason is that the higher handicapper has much more room for improvement than the lower handicapper does.
If a 28 handicapper improves by 10% then he is 3 under par
If a 5 handicapper improves by 10% then he is under and just lost the match 2 down.

The other side of the coin is that when you play of fractions the higher handicapper gets crucified and the lower one doesnt.
e.g 3/4 of 28 is 21
3/4 of 4 is 3
so the high guy loses 7 shots, the low guy loses 1

to me this only makes sense in team events when u have multiple chances at scoring to balance out the shot loss.