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I have been noticing with increasing frequency golf advice being handed out based solely on handicap rather than personal ability. Admittedly, your handicap is to a certain degree a key indicator of your ability, but I would like to argue that it shouldn’t be the sole indicator when we ask for advice on club selection, distance, swing speed, etc…
Perhaps we are all guilty of it to a degree, but we seem to want to quantify and categorise golf, when in actual fact it is rather unpredictable. For example, say you have a 24 handicap at your local course. Some would automatically think—right slow swinger, soft to medium flex shaft, game improvement irons, poor chipper and putter, off in the trees most of the time type of player. But what if we find out later that the player plays off a Wellington, NZ course that is so windy that balls actually blow off the green from time to time. Pull this person to another course and watch out they are shooting 8’s and 12’s off the stick. I have seen this personally which is why I am using this example.
I have also seen people directly correlate distance off the tee with a driver as a key indicator of swing speed. I have a mate who is an ex-cricketer, who from time to time can nail some seriously long drives, but is usually plagued with much shorter drives do to miss hits, etc… His normal swing speed is definitely higher than his handicap would suggest.
I would like to hear what every else thinks about this trend of generalizing ability with handicap.
Cheers,
Perhaps we are all guilty of it to a degree, but we seem to want to quantify and categorise golf, when in actual fact it is rather unpredictable. For example, say you have a 24 handicap at your local course. Some would automatically think—right slow swinger, soft to medium flex shaft, game improvement irons, poor chipper and putter, off in the trees most of the time type of player. But what if we find out later that the player plays off a Wellington, NZ course that is so windy that balls actually blow off the green from time to time. Pull this person to another course and watch out they are shooting 8’s and 12’s off the stick. I have seen this personally which is why I am using this example.
I have also seen people directly correlate distance off the tee with a driver as a key indicator of swing speed. I have a mate who is an ex-cricketer, who from time to time can nail some seriously long drives, but is usually plagued with much shorter drives do to miss hits, etc… His normal swing speed is definitely higher than his handicap would suggest.
I would like to hear what every else thinks about this trend of generalizing ability with handicap.
Cheers,
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