SANDBAGGERS
Recently, during a "friendly" golf event or tournament, if you will, it was brought to my and my playing partners attention that some of the participants that had traveled from a few states away were not accurately recording their scores and therefore were padding their handicaps for the event. Being paired with a couple gents who were friends of the eventual winners, the conversation about where we stood in the event and who some of the leaders were came up. Interestingly, the guys were very forthcoming about the fact that they were aware and even a little angry that their friends were not being honest with their scoring history. Now, to put it into perspective, the tournament was run as a percentage of your current HDCP (75%). And the way it was achieved was by multiplying your current HDCP x .75 to give you a tournament index. My starting HDCP was 11.3 and my tournament HDCP was 8. Personally, I think it overrides the WHS (World Handicap System) to adjust from your current HDCP and is a bit unfair if you are upholding the integrity of the game as you should. This method first and foremost benefits the lower handicap players as they lose less strokes then higher handicap players. Even worse than this is the most of us are (-) negative handicap players, meaning we get strokes taken from our gross score to give our net score. In this format, when a (+) handicap is factored by the 75%, the number of strokes they have to give back, actually decreases. The net difference, at full HDCP between a -12 handicap to and a +6 would be 18 strokes. In this format, the -12 goes to an -8 and the +6 goes to a +4, thus reducing the net between the two players to 12 strokes.
Starting to see the issue yet?
Back to my original point however. Now the eventual winner was a +1 playing as a 0 paired with a -13 playing as a -10, a combined HDCP of 10. These gents were whom our playing partners were referencing when they suggested that the HDCP's were not reflective of their true ability. So much so, that one statement was made comparing the swing and ball striking to a very prominent PGA and now PGA Champions player. Our playing partners were clear that the eventual winners did not post all of their scoring rounds, leaving out their better rounds, in lieu of their poor rounds, to keep their handicaps up high enough that they were certain to play at or better than their index, essentially forcing anyone that wanted to compete to play 2 rounds of golf far above their true potential.
Now, how to handle this?
For me, I am a little laid back since I had no expectations of winning an event and was there as a matter of fun. But it begs the question, how do YOU handle this type of scenario? Do you call out the sand baggers that carry a -13 and shoot 80 on two consecutive days? How do you validate that all the scores that should have been entered have been?
The eventual winners pocketed nearly $7000 each with the higher handicap recording 2 birdies and CTP on 2 of the par 3's and an eagle on his scorecard. Even though I am hesitant to make a scene out of respect for the event, those involved, and also since I am not one to whine about things, I did feel like I had been cheated the opportunity to compete.