Fact: general play scores aren’t the same as competition scores. Is this encouraging cheating?

It was one big experiment. For six months – from April until the end of October – I submitted every score into the World Handicap System.

It was irrelevant whether it was a competition or a knock with a couple of pals, if I teed it up I put a card in.

The rigmarole of toiling over three-foot putts EVERY time I was at a golf course quickly told me I’d never want to find myself in a situation where all scores counted. If you love all that, more power to you. It’s just not for me.

But as an exercise in watching my WHS index move, it was an illustrative time.

There was one thing that struck me like a lightning bolt. It was how my scores worsened when I played away from my ‘home’ course.

A pal and I went on something of a tour of the North of England – taking on a lot of a different courses – and the differences in my differentials (easy for me to say) between those rounds and those at a familiar venue was something like five shots.

Now, I wasn’t trying to cheat the system in any way. I was trying my nuts off. But I wasn’t familiar with the courses – where to hit, where to miss – and I didn’t play as well.

My handicap increased substantially. It led me to think there should be a weighting put on ‘away’ scores which accounted for the conditions that might see a player struggle to replicate their demonstrated ability.

With the row over the potential to manipulate WHS still going strong in GB&I, coming up on five years since the introduction of the system, I actually wonder if all general play scores should face an adjustment.

Hear me out.

However well intentioned, it doesn’t matter how many awareness campaigns there are, or how many governing bodies ask golfers to respect the Rules of Handicapping and the Rules of Golf, people will cheat.

Twas ever thus, you might say, but it is also very clear that the World Handicap System as it operates does make it easier for people do it.

Yes, there are far more ways to get caught, and more players are being flagged up than ever.

But regardless of that scrutiny, general play scores present more opportunities. If you’re not stupid about timestamping, or idiotic about winning a big competition after weeks of bad scores, who can tell if your trio of missed 5-footers, or those couple of duffed chips, were just poor strokes or an intentional act?

Do we need to look again at how general play scores are measured?

No handicap committee could unravel that puzzle. And as time passes, those missed shots, those slightly altered differentials, will make a difference.

Look, I like general play. I enjoy the flexibility it provides. If I’m feeling in a competitive mood, it allows me to scratch that itch. If I’m lucky enough to play a trophy course, I can put my handicap on the line and see how I match up.

But the feeling I have during those rounds is different to what I experience during the battle of competition.

It doesn’t matter how much I tell myself that a general play putt is crucial, it just doesn’t cut as deep as when pride and prize money are on the line. It’s just not as important.

Even if my attitude only dips by five per cent, that makes a difference to the scores I am submitting. And so it is potentially affecting my handicap.

So what if the way score differentials were calculated were slightly adjusted for general play? What if they added a small weight that smoothed the impact of that score whether it was good or bad?

WHS already has such measures within it. Your handicap can’t increase by more than five shots in a calendar year. The soft and hard cap is also applied to keep players from moving even quicker.

If general play scores weren’t treated quite the same as in competition, if there was a gentle hand pressing down on their impact, wouldn’t it make it harder to use them to manipulate an index? And wouldn’t that start to nullify the arguments that general play is little more than a cheat’s charter?

There are, of course, some big issues with this ‘utopia’. Wouldn’t it create a two-tiered system, with those who choose not to play competitions having an inferior – or, more accurately, a statistically incorrect – handicap to those that do?

The result would be that far from being that demonstration of our ability, could it actually be even more convoluted in that respect than the old CONGU system?

Would it also make a system that some claim is already too complicated even more difficult to follow?

Is general play just the price we pay for developing a system that is designed to be more welcoming and more accommodating?

No handicap system is perfect but given general play scores are going nowhere, should the focus be on creating a format that allows people to tee it up whenever they want and also allows everyone to have confidence in competitions?

Now have your say

You are the judge here. Let me know what you think – email me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com – and we’ll talk about some of your responses in a future episode of The NCG Golf Podcast or in a future article.

• NOW READ: This was the biggest change since the introduction of WHS. How has it affected you?

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