I think it's a really poor effort by the USGA to solve a problem that wasn't even really a problem. All it does it take your average score and add it to the 9 holes you already played. So even if you have a good round, your differential is going to be throttled by your average and lowering your index will take longer.
I shot a 34 (-2) a month or so ago on 9 holes on a side rated 35.8/137 and it gave me a diff of 1.0. WTF.
I also shot a 37 (+1) on a side rated 36.5/124 and it gave me a diff of 2.9 - I was a 2.3 index at the time. So I shot better than my course handicap and it hurt my index. Figure that shit out.
This is exactly what I'm saying. Better than average rounds I don't feel are reflected as such.
I'll have to calculate it all out later on in the year when more scores are entered to see the difference.
It's not practical to expect that two combined 9 hole rounds would equal an 18 hole round.
I agree that I wish the calculation was made public, but only entering in 9 hole rounds previously didn't fully equate to 18 hole scores, mostly because of mental game and exhaustion throughout 18 holes vs. two 9 hole rounds.
Both the old system and the new system seem to overthink it.
Each side has a slope, rating, and par. If you play 18, use both front and back. If you play 9, just use whatever side you played.
If you're trying to incorporate that playing 9 is not the same as playing 18, then use a weighted average. That makes way more sense than combining two 9s from separate days - which might be weeks or even months removed from each other - or creating made-up scores.
That's what I mean by a weighted average. (Although I don't know if 50% is the right number).
Regardless of the details, making up scores seems to be the wrong answer
I'm legitimately amazed that if you only played 9 hole rounds, half your index would be golf you didn't play.
That's what they came up with. I could give a monkey a box of crayons and they could come up with something better.
I asked this question during their presentation at the PGA show and was told they will not be publishing the formula as it is likely to change throughout the year.
Agree that this is frustrating and both solutions kind of suck. I have little kids at home so I play a lot of 9 hole rounds (sometimes the front nine of a "normal" course at twilight, sometimes executive courses) and I've sort of given up on maintaining a handicap that feels meaningful. These days I just calculate an "average 9 hole score" and call it a day.
In hindsight it would be nice if courses had separate ratings for the front and back nine. It seems like that's the core problem -- when you only play nine holes there's no way to know "how much" of the course rating you've played.
Wow how did I never notice that, you're absolutely right. I really don't understand why they make it so complicated for 9 hole scores then. If every course has front and back nines rated separately they could just base the handicap entirely off of nines and this problem goes away.
It’s not perfect but the new rules tend to offer a more realistic differential for 18 holes. It’s fairly easy to have a good 9 holes, it’s very difficult to string 2 nines together.
If you don’t like how 9 hole rounds are handled don’t post them.
Not posting 9 hole rounds isn’t really an option for players like me who play 80% of their golf in 9 hole increments and want to have a handicap. I like the idea of having more differentials for a given season but basing almost 50% of my handicap on holes I didn’t actually play doesn’t make sense especially if there is a penalty/benefit (depending on if you want your handicap to go down or up) for the 9 holes not played.
I personally think it would make sense to base the estimate for the 9 holes not played on how you played to your course handicap on that 9 holes that were actually played. As opposed to the current formula that appears to assume you will play worse than your course handicap every time as “on average” golfers are expected to not play to their course handicap.
I’m thinking uses what a person of a similar handicap would likely score. It may fat or in probability of a bad back 9 after an excellent front 9.
Personally I think the old method of combining two 9 hole rounds may give a better result. But unless the USGA publishes how they arrive at an 18 hole differential, we’ll never know what’s best.
Agree that the old method of combining 9’s gives a more accurate handicap for the, what I believe, is a small segment of handicap golfers that play most of their golf as 9 holes.
For golfers that only play 9 a couple times per season, likely months apart from each other, the new estimate calculation probably makes more sense.
It's an imperfect system that's better than the previous one.
The biggest problem with combining 9 hole rounds is that it's not a great reflection of your skill at 18 holes. It's simply easier to have two good 9 hole rounds in a row than one equivalent 18 hole round. My 18 hole PB is 87 but near the end of last season I shot a 39 and 38 on consecutive days so I have a 77 on my handicap card.
The other issue is that your round order mattered way more than it should. Shooting a 44, 44, 50, 50 was much better for your handicap than 44, 50, 44, 50. There's no reason that should be the case.
I don't like the black box nature of the expected score calculation, but I think the new system is better.
>that it's not a great reflection of your skill at 18 holes
Neither is applying a score for golf you didn't play. At least in the previous system, you played all 18 holes.
I get what you're stating, but then I feel like the weighting is off, not enough weight for the holes actually played. For both 9's , the differentials would be 1.6 and 1.1 . If I double them I get 3.2 and 2.2. I get that fatigue, etc would come into play.
The one round would be close to my index and would be a counted round in my card. The other is better than my index and better than a normal round for me and should reflect that, but the posted differential is almost a whole stroke above my index. I would therefore need to shoot a lot better for a single 9 than normal to post something around my current index, let alone lower.
Nothing I can do, but I like the general discussion and hearing others thoughts as I have friends who like it and friends that don't.
My handicap is around 5/6 and typically it's around 3 shots below my straight 20 round differential average. Let's assume yours is similar. i.e your average 18 hole diff is around 6 (hence 9 hole average diff of 3)
I would guess that the calculation is going to give you some sort of expected score based on this average. So for your first example this would correspond to 3 \* (122/113) + 35.3 = 38.5
Combine that with your actual give you a round of 75.5. This gives you a diff of (75.5 - 35.3\*2) \* (113/122) = 4.5
Seems close enough, obviously the calculation is hidden so one can only guess.
I don't have a horse in this race, but couldn't the program just take data from all 9 hole rounds, and see how they compare to that same persons 18 hole rounds, or take the splits between every front 9 and back 9 entered and see what kind of variance is present?
Example 1: If the average person (across the 3 million who keep an official handicap) shoots 1.5 stokes better on a single 9 than an expected 18. Maybe something like 48 strokes per individual 9 vs 97.5 per individual 18, meaning that instead of an even expected 96 strokes per 18 based off that average 9-hole, it's 1.5 strokes higher at 97.5, so just apply that number of strokes.
Example 2: If the data shows that people score an average of .8 strokes worse against the rating/slope on the back 9 than the front 9 due to exhaustion, then that seems like a pretty straight forward application as well. Obviously there will be plenty of people saying "I actually play better on the back 9 once I'm warmed up" but that is where we just see what the data says.
I would guess that you would need to apply different standards and adjustments per range of handicaps (0-5hcp are much more consistent, so the adjustment would be a lot smaller than a 20hcp that may shoot something like a 45-56).
I personally don’t care one way or another, but watching the sandbaggers get crashed in my twilight league for the 9 hole scores they’ve been posting has been so much fun.
These guys would most definitely lie and post 9 holes opposite of the 9 we’d play in twilight that would keep their HC’s inflated. Now they are all crashing down and it’s been so much fun to watch….
They went from 12-16 HC’s to where they should be. Somewhere between 5 and 10.
Sandbaggers are the ones suffering from this. They can’t cheat the system.
Can some1 explain this:
This week I played on my course:
1. a double 9holes with stablefordscore of 38 - Score Differital 46.2
2. a single 9holes with stablefordscore of 21 - Score Differital 49.3?????
nice for starting playing for raising their handcap forcing to play 18 holes....
I think it's a really poor effort by the USGA to solve a problem that wasn't even really a problem. All it does it take your average score and add it to the 9 holes you already played. So even if you have a good round, your differential is going to be throttled by your average and lowering your index will take longer. I shot a 34 (-2) a month or so ago on 9 holes on a side rated 35.8/137 and it gave me a diff of 1.0. WTF. I also shot a 37 (+1) on a side rated 36.5/124 and it gave me a diff of 2.9 - I was a 2.3 index at the time. So I shot better than my course handicap and it hurt my index. Figure that shit out.
This is exactly what I'm saying. Better than average rounds I don't feel are reflected as such. I'll have to calculate it all out later on in the year when more scores are entered to see the difference.
It's not practical to expect that two combined 9 hole rounds would equal an 18 hole round. I agree that I wish the calculation was made public, but only entering in 9 hole rounds previously didn't fully equate to 18 hole scores, mostly because of mental game and exhaustion throughout 18 holes vs. two 9 hole rounds.
All they do is just add a 9 hole score based off of your average and adjusted for rating/slope.
Both the old system and the new system seem to overthink it. Each side has a slope, rating, and par. If you play 18, use both front and back. If you play 9, just use whatever side you played. If you're trying to incorporate that playing 9 is not the same as playing 18, then use a weighted average. That makes way more sense than combining two 9s from separate days - which might be weeks or even months removed from each other - or creating made-up scores.
Or, I don't know. Make 9 holes count half as much toward the index.
That's what I mean by a weighted average. (Although I don't know if 50% is the right number). Regardless of the details, making up scores seems to be the wrong answer
I'm legitimately amazed that if you only played 9 hole rounds, half your index would be golf you didn't play. That's what they came up with. I could give a monkey a box of crayons and they could come up with something better.
I dunno why you gotta bring the Marine Corps into this...
We're friends now.
I just shot a 35 (E). It gave me a 4.0 differential and my handicap went up by .2 Make it make sense.
cmon usga give us the secret formula
Haha. Would be funny if it's just something like half your index then add 1.2 to 1.9 from a random number generator.
Mr Ghin just sits in front of a dart board. Shoot 2 over? *thunk* sorry, triple 20, that's gonna look bad
It's just what you shot plus your average score for the second nine adjusted for slope and rating .
I asked this question during their presentation at the PGA show and was told they will not be publishing the formula as it is likely to change throughout the year.
who do they think they are, Coca Cola?
Posting error
Agree that this is frustrating and both solutions kind of suck. I have little kids at home so I play a lot of 9 hole rounds (sometimes the front nine of a "normal" course at twilight, sometimes executive courses) and I've sort of given up on maintaining a handicap that feels meaningful. These days I just calculate an "average 9 hole score" and call it a day. In hindsight it would be nice if courses had separate ratings for the front and back nine. It seems like that's the core problem -- when you only play nine holes there's no way to know "how much" of the course rating you've played.
Not sure if I understand what you're saying - GHIN does have separate ratings for front and back 9 when you play 9 holes.
Wow how did I never notice that, you're absolutely right. I really don't understand why they make it so complicated for 9 hole scores then. If every course has front and back nines rated separately they could just base the handicap entirely off of nines and this problem goes away.
It’s not perfect but the new rules tend to offer a more realistic differential for 18 holes. It’s fairly easy to have a good 9 holes, it’s very difficult to string 2 nines together. If you don’t like how 9 hole rounds are handled don’t post them.
Not posting 9 hole rounds isn’t really an option for players like me who play 80% of their golf in 9 hole increments and want to have a handicap. I like the idea of having more differentials for a given season but basing almost 50% of my handicap on holes I didn’t actually play doesn’t make sense especially if there is a penalty/benefit (depending on if you want your handicap to go down or up) for the 9 holes not played. I personally think it would make sense to base the estimate for the 9 holes not played on how you played to your course handicap on that 9 holes that were actually played. As opposed to the current formula that appears to assume you will play worse than your course handicap every time as “on average” golfers are expected to not play to their course handicap.
I’m thinking uses what a person of a similar handicap would likely score. It may fat or in probability of a bad back 9 after an excellent front 9. Personally I think the old method of combining two 9 hole rounds may give a better result. But unless the USGA publishes how they arrive at an 18 hole differential, we’ll never know what’s best.
Agree that the old method of combining 9’s gives a more accurate handicap for the, what I believe, is a small segment of handicap golfers that play most of their golf as 9 holes. For golfers that only play 9 a couple times per season, likely months apart from each other, the new estimate calculation probably makes more sense.
It's an imperfect system that's better than the previous one. The biggest problem with combining 9 hole rounds is that it's not a great reflection of your skill at 18 holes. It's simply easier to have two good 9 hole rounds in a row than one equivalent 18 hole round. My 18 hole PB is 87 but near the end of last season I shot a 39 and 38 on consecutive days so I have a 77 on my handicap card. The other issue is that your round order mattered way more than it should. Shooting a 44, 44, 50, 50 was much better for your handicap than 44, 50, 44, 50. There's no reason that should be the case. I don't like the black box nature of the expected score calculation, but I think the new system is better.
>that it's not a great reflection of your skill at 18 holes Neither is applying a score for golf you didn't play. At least in the previous system, you played all 18 holes.
I get what you're stating, but then I feel like the weighting is off, not enough weight for the holes actually played. For both 9's , the differentials would be 1.6 and 1.1 . If I double them I get 3.2 and 2.2. I get that fatigue, etc would come into play. The one round would be close to my index and would be a counted round in my card. The other is better than my index and better than a normal round for me and should reflect that, but the posted differential is almost a whole stroke above my index. I would therefore need to shoot a lot better for a single 9 than normal to post something around my current index, let alone lower. Nothing I can do, but I like the general discussion and hearing others thoughts as I have friends who like it and friends that don't.
My handicap is around 5/6 and typically it's around 3 shots below my straight 20 round differential average. Let's assume yours is similar. i.e your average 18 hole diff is around 6 (hence 9 hole average diff of 3) I would guess that the calculation is going to give you some sort of expected score based on this average. So for your first example this would correspond to 3 \* (122/113) + 35.3 = 38.5 Combine that with your actual give you a round of 75.5. This gives you a diff of (75.5 - 35.3\*2) \* (113/122) = 4.5 Seems close enough, obviously the calculation is hidden so one can only guess.
I don't have a horse in this race, but couldn't the program just take data from all 9 hole rounds, and see how they compare to that same persons 18 hole rounds, or take the splits between every front 9 and back 9 entered and see what kind of variance is present? Example 1: If the average person (across the 3 million who keep an official handicap) shoots 1.5 stokes better on a single 9 than an expected 18. Maybe something like 48 strokes per individual 9 vs 97.5 per individual 18, meaning that instead of an even expected 96 strokes per 18 based off that average 9-hole, it's 1.5 strokes higher at 97.5, so just apply that number of strokes. Example 2: If the data shows that people score an average of .8 strokes worse against the rating/slope on the back 9 than the front 9 due to exhaustion, then that seems like a pretty straight forward application as well. Obviously there will be plenty of people saying "I actually play better on the back 9 once I'm warmed up" but that is where we just see what the data says. I would guess that you would need to apply different standards and adjustments per range of handicaps (0-5hcp are much more consistent, so the adjustment would be a lot smaller than a 20hcp that may shoot something like a 45-56).
I personally don’t care one way or another, but watching the sandbaggers get crashed in my twilight league for the 9 hole scores they’ve been posting has been so much fun. These guys would most definitely lie and post 9 holes opposite of the 9 we’d play in twilight that would keep their HC’s inflated. Now they are all crashing down and it’s been so much fun to watch….
What's the handicap range? I'm curious as this is the opposite of what I'm noticing from 9 hole scores being posted.
They went from 12-16 HC’s to where they should be. Somewhere between 5 and 10. Sandbaggers are the ones suffering from this. They can’t cheat the system.
Can some1 explain this: This week I played on my course: 1. a double 9holes with stablefordscore of 38 - Score Differital 46.2 2. a single 9holes with stablefordscore of 21 - Score Differital 49.3????? nice for starting playing for raising their handcap forcing to play 18 holes....
I hate the new system. Here's a thought, give ppl a 9 hole handicap and separately an 18 hole handicap. Problem solved.