On Handicaps

I've wanted to deal with this issue for some time, and when if not now?  But as always I need an appropriate foil (or fool if you prefer), and today it's new-to-me Golf Digest writer Bob Carney.  He posted on his five wishes from Santa at The Loop recently, and the first four are reasonably innocuous though perhaps a tad internally inconsistent (See Nos. 1 and 2 especially).  But here's No. 5 in its entirety:

5. A new handicap system. Most people don’t use it anyway, but for those who do, the

USGA handicap system is a second tax code. Clever people work it. Other people get worked by it. And it’s a great excuse to get bogged down in numbers when we should be playing a game. To quote Mr. Hogan, the only shot that counts is the next one. With a new system play would move faster because only certain rounds -- tournament or monthly “medal” days—would be recorded, and no one could record more than a double bogey. Differentials would be built on Stableford scores, so there would be fewer conversations beginning, “I’m not sure if that was a 9 or a 10. Let me see….” Handicap rules like this seem to work in places like Ireland.

I believe there is an underlying issue of interest here, one that we'll dive into in a minute.  But it's difficult to find that issue, namely his advocacy of the UK and Ireland handicapping system, within his nonsense-on-stilts.  Let's briefly dispense with said nonsense, a micro-Fisking if you will:

• Most people don't use it - This might well be true, though only in a sense that it's completely irrelevant.  Sure, lots of people play golf either unburdened by a scorecard or only to calculate their own score.  I've no idea if this constitutes a majority of players and/or rounds, and couldn't care less.  A handicap system is necessary, however, for those desiring to play matches, and I'll wager my 100% equity interest in Unplayable Lies, Inc. that a majority of this subset use the handicap system.
• It's a second tax code - I'm gonna guess Mr. Carney was a LibArts major, or at the very least doesn't prepare his own tax return.  I remain convinced that Equitable Stroke Control ("ESC") is needlessly complicated and illogical (let's see, a fourteen-handicap can take a max of seven on a Par-3 as well as a Par-5, wassup with that?), but except for that we enter our scores in a computer and every two weeks get an e-mail with our index.  It's not quite up there with accelerated depreciation tables or alternative minimum tax calculations now, is it?
• Clever people work it - Is Mr. Carney under the impression that there are no sandbaggers in the UK?  My word, he must be an easily disillusioned fellow... but if you build a nadicap system they will come, and in so doing you will deal with SB's as well as vanity handicaps, so the only relevant question is whther one is easier to game vs. the other.
• I'm not sure if that was a nine... - Yes, a Stableford eliminates any score over a net bogey.  But guess what, as a single-digit handicap I can't post a score with more than a gross double bogey on any hole...kinda similar, no?

So, is the UK and Ireland system better?  That's very arguable as we'll get into, though it's quite different in the following ways:

• Fewer Scores - Posting is only done a limited number of rounds, tourneys or monthly medals as noted in the excerpt; 
• Stableford - Scores are posted as Stableford point totals and those are used to calculate handicaps;
• No Slopes - The biggest problem in comparing U.S. and U.K. handicaps is that the Council of National Golf Unions ("CONGU"), to whom the R & A delegated responsibility, has refused to establish slope ratings for its golf courses.  

Now when the subject of handicaps comes up I go to the most obvious source, my Pope if you will.  I refer of course to Dean Knuth, former Senior Director of United States Golf Association Handicap Department, the developer of the USGA's Course Rating and Slope Rating System, who is known to all in the biz as the Pope of Slope.  And Dean's writings on the subject can be found at the appropriately url'd popeofslope.com.

I'm going to let everyone off easily and not dive too far into the long grass, but I did need to include this excerpt from Dean:

The R&A turned over control of handicapping in 1927 to CONGU (Council of National Golf Unions). They have not adopted the Slope System simply because the English GU refused to adopt it--Even after Ireland, Wales and Scotland had Slope rated most of their courses and wanted to go forward. Continental Europe got so frustrated with CONGU that they formed their own handicapping body (European Golf Association) and adopted Slope. The Ladies Golf Union now follows CONGU, but have Course and Slope Rated their courses according to the USGA System.

To be clear, the system that our Mr. Carney advocates was in fact repudiated by many of its constituencies, who have gone their own way.

As to which system is better, I'll refer you to Dean's long page on comparing the two systems, which includes a laundry list of deficiencies that you can absorb at your leisure.  Dean is no doubt invested in the U.S. system, much of which he created.  But his explanations and criticisms are all well argued and documented, and in the case of ESC, he doesn't hesitate to consider Stableford more effective.  But do read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

One last point about Mr. Carney's thought process that I find amusing (acknowledging that I'm undoubtedly investing far too much importance in a silly Christmas list).  He notes that pace of play would improve (but do note that I've ignored the unsubstantiated contention that posting scores negatively affects pace of play) because only scores from the Monthly Medal would be posted.  Does your club have a Monthly Medal (that question is not for you, Elsie)?  See where I'm headed?

Most of us play at clubs where the average member thinks there are already too many damn tournaments clogging up the golf course...  It's no doubt interesting how the game has developed in different countries, and I've long believed that the Stableford is a worthy format for certain events (our club has adopted it for qualifying for certain events), but one has to make the case for the superiority of the U.K. system, which Carney doesn't trouble himself about.  And I've got the Pope of Slope in my corner, so those arguments have to, you know, make sense...