The new World Handicapping System (WHS) comes in tomorrow, 2 November 2020. Hopefully you will all have been able to read about it over the last few weeks, including the Scottish Golf "Bite-size" posts that Morag has shared here on the blog. The data conversion has been a massive task and there are bound to be some anomalies but here are the main things to keep in mind:
1) Don't panic!
2) You can find your "projected" new Handicap Index - and from tomorrow your new Handicap Index - on the Scottish Golf App.
3) All other things being equal you would expect your new Handicap Index to be LOWER than your current handicap.
This is because your Handicap Index is NOT the number of strokes you will receive when playing at Ranfurly Castle.
Your Handicap Index will be multiplied up using the course Slope Rating to work out your Course Handicap.
From the most recent certification from Scottish Golf, the ladies' Slope Rating for the Red Course is 130 and the Green Course is 129.
Therefore your Course Handicap will be found by multiplying your Handicap Index by 130/113 (ie 1.15) for the Red Course or 129/113 for the Green Course.
Example: Handicap Index 20 = Course Handicap 23 for the Red Course and 22.8 for the Green Course.
(Further complication involves taking a percentage of this Course Handicap depending on what type of competition you are playing eg 95% for an Individual Strokeplay competition such as a Medal, but I'm not putting all that detail in here now).
4) There are definitely some errors, in that the historic CDH data used to calculate everyone's new Handicap Index is not 100% perfect. This has been admitted and explained by Scottish Golf.
For example, my own projected Index omits 2 of my scores from 2019 (ironically the 2 that were run by Scottish Golf at the medal finals!) and some of the scores do not have the Red/Green course distinction correct. However, the outcome is broadly in line with what I would have expected.
I suggest that if your Index is broadly in line with what you would have expected, we will all need to just accept this. Some errors may be corrected over the next few weeks by data refinement and others will sort themselves out in due course as we enter future scores.
5) However, if your projected Index is MARKEDLY different from what you might expect eg Current Handicap 32, projected Handicap Index 10 or vice versa, please let me know. This will require further investigation and correction.
I'm sure that after some initial adjustment (change is hard!) we will all get used to this new system and come in time to prefer it to the "up 0.1" CONGU system.
