Which handicap hole ranking to use?

[lchang]

Player A is playing the Blue tees, Player B playing the Whites.  Player A is giving Player B 4 strokes in a net match using their respective playing handicaps. The scorecard has different handicap hole rankings for the White and Blue tees:  which tee’s rankings should be used?

 

(an example scorecard for such a course with different hole rankings.)

[Augster]

The guy getting shots uses the handicap rankings for the set of tees he is playing. 
 

[MisterT]

Am I correct in assuming it is the back tees that are used to establish the rankings, if there is only one set of hole rankings? I play a course where the #1 hole is an uphill 431 yards from the Yellows (tips) and a level 345 from the Whites and the #2 hole is 426 yards over water twice from the Yellows and 324 from the Whites.

[Mudguard]

Even under WHS I don't think matches are supposed to be played off different tees for this reason.

Low handicap goes to zero and the high handicapper is reduced by the low marker's handicap.

So if the low is a six and the high are a ten. The low goes to zero, high to a four, and receives a stroke on handicap one through four. 

 

I'd have to dive deeper to see if my home course has different hole ratings per tee. But again, matchplay should be played off the same tee for this reason. 

[Newby]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

Even under WHS I don't think matches are supposed to be played off different tees for this reason.

Low handicap goes to zero and the high handicapper is reduced by the low marker's handicap.

So if the low is a six and the high are a ten. The low goes to zero, high to a four, and receives a stroke on handicap one through four. 

 

I'd have to dive deeper to see if my home course has different hole ratings per tee. But again, matchplay should be played off the same tee for this reason. 

Augster is correct. Take the SI for the tees you are playing. In matchplay the lower net wins the hole.

 

See clause 6.2b(i) which implies that mixed tee matchplay is permitted.

[Augster]

We play mixed tee match play all the time. Nearly every day. WHS works great for it. Your cap changes depending on the tee you play. Significantly in some cases. 
 

Ben and I play a match from the white tees. He’s a 1 and I’m a 3. He has to give me 2 shots. I use the hole handicaps for the white tees. 
 

Today I decide I’m going to play gold and he wants to play blue and we still have a match. Stepping back a set, Ben is a 2. Stepping up a set, I go to +2. In this match, I’m giving Ben 4 shots. He uses the hole handicaps for the blue tees. 
 

The GHIN app makes this so easy to do. You can literally choose whatever tees you, individually, want to play each day and still have equitable matches. 
 

Sometimes we’ll move guys around to different tees inside our foursome just so we don’t have to give shots. Move the higher caps up, or the lower cape back and everyone in the group is within a shot of each other and play straight up. The different tees even out the PH’s for the day and hole handicaps aren’t needed as nobody gets shots. 

[Mudguard]

40 minutes ago, Augster said:

We play mixed tee match play all the time. Nearly every day. WHS works great for it. Your cap changes depending on the tee you play. Significantly in some cases. 

 

I need to look this up to see if there is any strategy for this. My home course has five tees to choose from. Would I give fewer strokes moving back and forth. And who decides which tee? For example if I had to give five shots if we both played the shortest tee, or would I have to give six shots if we played the longest tee and so forth. 

I'm still perplexed by which tee you allocate the stroke holes to (if they are indeed different for your course). Most courses in New Zealand generally only have two or possibly tees. So they are all generally rated the same. 

 

I can't find 6.2B (i). Has this vanished?

 

For giggles I had a look at a fictional match versus a friend of mine. 

 

Could give no strokes if he chose red and I chose blue!

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by Mudguard

[Newby]

5 hours ago, Mudguard said:

I can't find 6.2B (i). Has this vanished?

 

 

Page 65 of the WHS Rules of Handicapping. (USA & CONGU)

 

But the NZ version of the book may be slightly different.

 

[Augster]

23 hours ago, Mudguard said:

 

I need to look this up to see if there is any strategy for this. My home course has five tees to choose from. Would I give fewer strokes moving back and forth. And who decides which tee? For example if I had to give five shots if we both played the shortest tee, or would I have to give six shots if we played the longest tee and so forth. 

I'm still perplexed by which tee you allocate the stroke holes to (if they are indeed different for your course). Most courses in New Zealand generally only have two or possibly tees. So they are all generally rated the same. 

 

I can't find 6.2B (i). Has this vanished?

 

For giggles I had a look at a fictional match versus a friend of mine. 

 

Could give no strokes if he chose red and I chose blue!

 

 

 

If the various tees are rated correctly, there shouldn’t be much advantage/disadvantage to any of them, with a couple caveats…..

 

If a player moves back a set or two and suddenly some of the par 4’s are impossible for him to hit in regulation, he’s going to struggle. Instead of a bunch of par 4’s and a couple

par 5’s, he’s now playing a lot of par 5’s without the added benefit of a par adjustment. Which brings me to caveat 2…

 

If a player moves up and they don’t make a par adjustment for holes that obviously need it, that player will not only be playing easier tees, he’ll also be playing a more forgiving par. On our course, we have a 480 yard par 5, par 71, that from the gold tees is a 370 yard “par 5”. There needs to be an adjustment to a par 4 so that adds in to the PH for the day. I’ve gone around and around with our handicap chair and he won’t budge. Saying, in our comps, “the guys allowed to play from the golds can’t get there in 2. It’s a par 5 for them”. Which is BS.

 

In daily play anyone should be able to play any tees and have a match. If I play someone of like skill, and I play the golds and they don’t, and it’s a par 71 from the golds instead of par 70 as it should be, I’m gaining an extra shot. 

 

You are correct that MOST tees will share the same hole handicaps. It’s only when there are significant distance changes between different boxes that the committee would need to make up different hole handicaps. 
 

Always, the player GETTING strokes uses the hole handicaps for the course he is playing. 
 

You are correct in your spreadsheet that A and C would play scratch if A plays the red and C plays the blue. No strokes needed. No hole handicaps needed. 🙂

[Halebopp]

7 hours ago, Augster said:

If a player moves up and they don’t make a par adjustment for holes that obviously need it, that player will not only be playing easier tees, he’ll also be playing a more forgiving par. On our course, we have a 480 yard par 5, par 71, that from the gold tees is a 370 yard “par 5”. There needs to be an adjustment to a par 4 so that adds in to the PH for the day. I’ve gone around and around with our handicap chair and he won’t budge. Saying, in our comps, “the guys allowed to play from the golds can’t get there in 2. It’s a par 5 for them”. Which is BS.

 

In daily play anyone should be able to play any tees and have a match. If I play someone of like skill, and I play the golds and they don’t, and it’s a par 71 from the golds instead of par 70 as it should be, I’m gaining an extra shot. 

 

 

Par number is almost irrelevant. Course and Slope Ratings dictate how many strokes it should take for a player to get around the course in order to play to his/her handicap. Changing par doesn't change the Course Rating and therefore a player who'd get 10 strokes on a par 71 would get 11 strokes on the same course from the same set of tees if it were a par 70. Granted the extra stroke wouldn't probably fall onto that particular par 4/5 but the player would be handed an extra stroke somewhere.

 

Course Handicap = Slope/113 * H.I. + CR - Par

[oikos1]

On 9/8/2021 at 9:05 PM, Mudguard said:

 

I need to look this up to see if there is any strategy for this. My home course has five tees to choose from. Would I give fewer strokes moving back and forth. And who decides which tee? For example if I had to give five shots if we both played the shortest tee, or would I have to give six shots if we played the longest tee and so forth. 

I'm still perplexed by which tee you allocate the stroke holes to (if they are indeed different for your course). Most courses in New Zealand generally only have two or possibly tees. So they are all generally rated the same. 

 

I can't find 6.2B (i). Has this vanished?

 

For giggles I had a look at a fictional match versus a friend of mine. 

 

Could give no strokes if he chose red and I chose blue!

 

 

 

Or you move up to yellow, which is roughly 5800 yds and only have to give three strokes.  You're going to have a lot of looks at birdie.

 

I think there is definitely a strategy with multiple tee options and the fact that golf is a game played by humans.  It isn't linear.  Perhaps a certain part of your game is feeling a bit off and moving to a different set of tees favors that deficit on that particular day.

[lchang]

A somewhat related question  to confirm my assumption: strokes given on a hole are relative to par, right?  Eg, if I’m giving my sister a stroke on a hole that is a par-4 from my tees, and a par-5 from her tees, her bogey 6 matches my par 4, right?  

[Augster]

1 hour ago, lchang said:

A somewhat related question  to confirm my assumption: strokes given on a hole are relative to par, right?  Eg, if I’m giving my sister a stroke on a hole that is a par-4 from my tees, and a par-5 from her tees, her bogey 6 matches my par 4, right?  

No. 
 

A score is a score. You score a par 4 and she scores a par 5, you win the hole. There is no par. “Par” is just a made up construct that is used for stableford. 
 

Match play only cares about strokes taken. “Par” would have already been accounted for in the “CR-par” part of the PH computation. 
 

 

[DaveLeeNC]

13 hours ago, Augster said:

No. 
 

A score is a score. You score a par 4 and she scores a par 5, you win the hole. There is no par. “Par” is just a made up construct that is used for stableford. 
 

Match play only cares about strokes taken. “Par” would have already been accounted for in the “CR-par” part of the PH computation. 
 

 

 

Quoted from Playing a match from different tees under the World Handicap System (usga.org)

 

However, the WHS has introduced an important change: the Course Handicap calculation now includes a Course Rating minus par adjustment. This means that the benchmark for all players has shifted from their respective Course Rating to par. As a result, as long as par is the same from each set of tees being played, no Course Handicap adjustment is needed. In other words, the new calculation automatically accounts for the Course Rating difference, which makes it easier for golfers to have a fair game when they are playing from different tees.

With that said, in instances when par is different, any player competing from tees with a higher par must add the difference in par to their Course Handicap.

 

dave

[DaveLeeNC]

Back to the question that started this thread of how to handle handicapped match play from different tees where there is a hole that is a par 5 for one competitor and and a par 4 for the other..  

 

I guess you have two choices here. 

 

1) You can do the additional par adjustment as the USGA described (see the previous post in this thread). 

 

2) You can just use your respective Playing Handicaps without adjustment and play against par on the hole where par is different. 

 

They are kind of the same thing but would not end up having the same strokes applied by hole in both cases. 

 

But an adjustment must be made somewhere in both match play and stroke play for the case of differing pars in handicap competition. The WHS adjusts handicap relative to par, and one player gets an advantage if par is not the same. 

 

dave