Golfpocalypse is a collection of words about golf (professional and otherwise) with very little in the way of a point, and the Surgeon General says it will make you a worse person. Reach out to The Golfpocalypse with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at [email protected].
At the start of 2024, the scalawags behind the “Golf Handicap & Index Network,” aka GHIN, operating under the auspices of a terrifying foreign cabal called the World Handicap System (WHS), instituted a new policy for nine-hole rounds. It’s kind of hard to understand and relies on a proprietary formula, but the basic gist is that if you enter nine holes into GHIN, it will automatically fill in the back nine, based on your handicap, to calculate an 18-hole score for you. Prior to that, the standard was to wait until a player had two nine-hole rounds and just combine them for an 18-hole score. That was a bit sloppy, and the change was made so that more people could have handicaps, including those who don’t get a chance to play very many full rounds.
That’s all well and good. I guess. Sort of. But I have two problems with the system. One of them is superficial and very selfish, and one is so human that it may make you weep with shared empathy for our species.
First off, without getting into the specific formulas of the system, the truth is that if you only play nine holes, the math will always take you back to your average. Sometimes that’s a benefit; if you’re a 12 handicap and you shoot 48 on the front, your back nine “expected” (i.e. fake) score will be calculated based on what a 12 handicap should shoot on that course, so something like a 42 or 43. But if you shoot lights out on the front and get a 37, guess what? You’re getting that same 42 on the back. It may keep you from putting up a real stinker of a round, but it also stops you from going low.
The argument goes that statistically, it all comes out in the wash. And probably when you look at raw scores, or at least the average of them, that might be true. But if you’re someone like me who is trying very hard to get his handicap into single digits (I’m just above 11 now and peaked at 10.6 last summer), you really, really need those super low rounds on the unconscious days to drag your handicap index down. About a month ago I shot a 74 on a magical day full of stardust and destiny, and that 4.6 differential is giving me a real shot at single digits. But in order to get there, I need at least one more low round in the 70s, and the “reversion to the mean” that the new GHIN entails means I basically can’t get the equivalent differential playing nine holes. As an example, I just posted calculated what my differential would be if I posted a 36 on the front at my home course from the white tees. The answer? A 9.0. A 9.0, for shooting one over par! I can’t do much better than that, but if I managed to stay relatively hot, or even a little better than average, the differential would be wayyyyy lower.
RELATED: Evil golf genius puts together perfect sandbagging guide to guarantee a worse handicap
On the flip side, having the nine-hole differential policy “save” my bad rounds is irrelevant to me. If I put up a stinker through nine holes, getting the differential down from 20 to 15 (or whatever) doesn’t do a thing for me, because neither score will count as one of my eight best scores that gets factored into the differential.
In short, they’re killing me on the good side by keeping me from going super low, and doing nothing for me on the bad side. That’s the superficial, selfish take.
The human take, on the other hand, is much simpler: These aren’t real numbers! THEY’RE NOT *#$*ING REAL. These aren’t real shots, real holes, or real scores! You’re being assigned a handicap based on an algorithm and a theory, rather than the physical act of playing golf and posting scores. That’s messed up! The old system of combining nine-hole scores was kind of funky, but at least they represented actual real-world results. This new system of projection is the golf equivalent of ghost runners in pickup baseball—a phantom round you never actually played, with numbers living in a computer. I find it weird and undesirable to have my handicap disconnected from the physical realm. My mediocre handicap should come from my own mediocre swing.
So, my solution? I’m not entering nine-hole rounds anymore. I won’t do it. Throw me in golf jail if necessary, but from now on my handicap will be calculated solely on holes I actually play, which means no more nine-holers or partial rounds. I’ll enter every 18-hole round I play, and that’s it.
I’m actually kind of excited for this. First off, it takes all the pressure off my nine-hole rounds, when I feel like I have to shoot level par to make any impact on my handicap index, and the first time I make a double bogey the whole round is a wash. Second, it puts more pressure on my 18-hole rounds, but in a good way, where it will feel like I’m playing for stakes even if it’s just a weekend round with friends.
I don’t know if this is ethical or what, but frankly I don’t care. If the WHS sends some GHIN shock troops to come confiscate my clubs or pelt me with tees, I am happy to be a martyr for the cause. I understand some people need to enter nine-hole scores because they can’t play 18 that often, and I won’t hold it against them, but if you’re like me and believe the new system is a dud, declare your independence this July 4. Be like our forefathers, and give the middle finger to tyranny by dumping a stack of scorecards in your nearest harbor.
RELATED: This DP World Tour winner claims to have shot three course records while being ‘completely hammered’
THE ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD LOCKS OF THE WEEK
Golfpocalypse is not a gambling advice service, and you should never heed anything written here. Better picks are here.
Career Record: 8-75. I hit Scottie at the Memorial! I got him! Nobody else could have predicted that the world no. 1 would win a tournament he also won the year before! This changes everything!
Unfortunately I cannot pick Scottie again at the John Deere Classic, so instead I’ll take a flyer on Michael Thorbjornsen, operating on the theory that we’re in a brief young guns phase, where people like him and Potgieter are going to light it up until they all become traumatized by the wind in Northern Ireland and disappear for a decade.
The old boys and the LPGA aren’t playing this week, so we’ll head over to the DP World Tour and pick Raasmuus Neergaard Peeetteerrssseeennn to take down the BMW International Open in Munich. I will be the first to admit that some of these Danish golfers blend together in my mind into a giant, intimidating “super Dane,” but Neergaard Petersen was quite good at Oakmont and I love his dark horse Ryder Cup energy.
At LIV Golf Tornado Alley, I’m loving temperamental Instagram baby golfer “Notorious” Clyde Domingo.
THE “DUMB TAKE I KIND OF BELIEVE”
Every once in a while, a player who tops his opening tee shot from the back tees should be kicked off the course, and his name and image spread across social media as a sort of shame deterrent. Not every time, mind you, not even often, just enough to where it puts the thought in their head that maybe they should play the correct tee. The only exception to this should be if I’m the one who tops the ball.
Previously on Golfpocalypse:
I will abandon my friends during a round. Does this make me a bad person?Did I dishonor the game via handicap shenanigans?Rory’s Masters win was the ultimate “dudes crying” moment in golfI want to be a draw alpha, not a fade betaIf you had to give up golf or sex for the rest of your life, which would it be?I am the recent victim of golf snobbery, and I’m madShould the Tour just move to an F1 style schedule and be done with it?I was the world’s most annoying teenage golf maintenance workerCan golf still be a spiritual experience in 2024?There is nothing stranger than a golfer’s brain…just ask usI have the dumbest golf pet peeve, but I can’t shake itIf you talk about politics on the course, please, for God’s sake, stopLoving Golf in 2024 is about finding where the money isn’tI believed in the magic of Tiger Woods when I was a kid, but I’m a cynic nowIf you can enjoy playing golf alone, you have achieved NirvanaI took 12 stitches to the head for golf before I even loved itAn annual ‘Friends Ryder Cup’ trip is the greatest thing in golfMarshals at public golf courses need to get way meanerI, and I alone, have the genius tweak to fix the Tour ChampionshipIt cannot be fun to play golf when you’re egregiously badConfession: I break clubs when I’m madPlaying golf in bad weather makes me feel aliveCaring what other people think of your golf game is annoying to other peopleSympathize with Rory, because choking sucks
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com