CLUB HANDICAP SUGGESTIONS

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  1.  Handicap competition first to 21 shots
    Ok its time to raise that old chestnut of mine again the four wood handicap competition. Most of you thought it was ridiculous when I suggested last year that all none scratch players should be off 10 however the membership chose to stick with the existing handicap system we have used for years and guess the result, a scratch player winning the competition and a scratch player coming runner-up. For future competitions we need to completely rethink how we arrive at the handicaps for each individual player. So lets start by looking at the definition of what a handicap competition is.
    The handicap competition should be a competition where players of different skill levels compete fairly by adjusting their scores based on their individual abilities. By levelling the playing field better players are given a disadvantage or less skilled players are given an advantage to equalise everyone’s chances of winning. However, in my opinion we have not adopted this definition into our competition and instead over the years the rules for the competition have become weighted in favour of scratch players. I would like the members and committee members to consider the following.

  2. 2  Bowls
    4 bowls too many as most of the handicaps when playing against a scratch player would be wiped out after only one or two ends played.
    Suggest reduce number of bowls to 2

  3. 3  21 Shots
    Most of our player would fail to make a score of 10 never mind 21 against scratch players
    Suggest reduce score to 15

  4.   2026 Handicap of individual players as follows 6 off 0

    3 off 2 one of these is a county player ?
    3 off 4
    3 off 5
    1 off 8

    From the above one player off 2 and one player off 4 got through to the semi-final we have to go back to 2014 when a non scratch player last won this competition

    Club Handicap Winners
    2026 G.Owen, 2025 D.Clough, 2024 D.Clough, 2023 B.Turner, 2022 B.Turner 2021 D.Smith, 2020 Not Played, 2019 D.R.Harrison, 2018 D.Smith, 2017 C.Bell 2016 J.Sutherland, 2015 E.Guttridge, 2014 D.Melling.
    Suggest all county players and Competition Winners be off 0 to 2 rest of the players be off 7, and new starters off 10 ( clearly Richards 8 handicap didn’t work )

  5.  Table Draw
    So that we have at least one non scratch player reaching the final I would suggest all players off a handicap of between 0 and 2 are drawn against each other and play in the top half of the table. The rest play against each other in the bottom half of the table.

    An alternative to all of the above is to have a handicap competition for novice members only. The balls are in your court.