In a perfect world a scorecard would
have a place for your name, 18 numbered squares where you would record your
score, yardage for each hole, par, and a set of stroke allocations specifying
where handicap strokes are to be taken.
The course and slope rating should be on the card, but I would put them
on the non-scoring side of the card. The
less I am reminded of the USGA Slope System during a round, the better for my
piece of mind.
It would also be nice to ban all
advertising from the card. I can at least
tolerate this clutter, however, in the pollyannish belief that advertising
lowers my green fees.
This is not a perfect world,
however, and growing number of scorecards have taken on the look of a random
number table as different handicap stroke allocations are assigned to each set
of tees. The problem has been
exacerbated by the trend toward more tees to accommodate players of varying
abilities.
To add these additional rows of
numbers for stroke allocations, some courses have simply increased the size of
the scorecard. Now you need origami
lessons to fold that big sucker to fit in your back pocket. Of course the scorecard is not designed to
fit in your pocket, but rather to rest comfortably on the steering wheel of an
electric cart, but that is another complaint.
Another approach for adding the
numbers has been to reduce the size of type to that used in newspapers to list
the winners of the Malaysian Four Ball Championship and obituaries of lesser
luminaries. To read this scorecard
requires squinting which is just another reminder of advancing age. If I wanted such a constant reminder, of
course, I would have stuck to pick-up basketball games.
A last technique shrinks the space
for writing your score and any information relative to wagers you might have
placed. This reflects the misplaced
priorities of the designer who believes the scorecard is more important than
the score.
Why are some courses including
stroke allocations for each set of tees?
In an unscientific sample, most of the perpetrators thought they were
doing the right thing. The more numbers,
they believed, the more accuracy and hence more equity in competition. Unfortunately, they were as wrong as they
were well intentioned.
The first thing you have to
understand about stroke allocations is that there is no adequate theory
demonstrating that one method is better than any other. In fact, the USGA recommended methodology for
allocating handicap strokes is almost universally ignored. The USGA argues holes should be ranked by the
difference in average scores between a group of good golfers (handicaps less
than 8) and not so good golfers (handicap range of 20 to 28). This method, the USGA argues "will
maximize, on average, the number of halved holes in a match." [1]
The USGA never states why a useful criterion is the number of halved
holes. Does it make any difference if I
win one hole and my opponent wins one hole, or if we halve both holes?
The more common way of allocating
strokes is to rank holes by the difficulty of making par. The number 1 stroke hole is then the toughest
hole on the course and so on. But the
offending courses have taken this to extremes.
A small difference in hole rankings among sets of tees is all the
justification needed for different stroke allocations. No attempt at measuring the statistical
significance of the difference in ranking or the impact on the equity of
competition is made.
Let me argue that it makes little
difference in match play where strokes are given or taken. (There are obviously rare situations where
this hypothesis does not hold, but they are so uncommon as not to harm the
general premise.) As an exercise, you
should produce a stroke allocation you believe is best for you. Then play a match with your
"desired" stroke holes. Compare
the results with the outcome of the match as if it were played by the stroke
allocation on the card. Over the
long-run, you should not see a significant difference in your won and lost
record using either allocation.
But this thesis does not rely solely
on anecdotal evidence. To test the
impact of stroke allocation on the equity of competition a computer simulation
of matches was used. Scores from one
course with two sets of tees (white and blue) and stroke allocations were
used. It was found that if you won your
match with a white tee allocation, there was a 95 percent change you would have
won with the blue tee allocation. This
small difference should be expected due to the random nature of scoring.
A simulation was also run with an
inverse allocation of the white tee allocation (i.e., the first stroke hole
becomes the eighteenth stroke hole). Winners under the white tee allocation won
or tied 97 percent of their matches under the inverse allocation. Even though this inverse allocation seems so
foreign, it produces essentially the same winners as the more orthodox stroke
allocation. And if you want to use the
USGA's peculiar criterion, all three allocations yielded about the same number
of halved holes.
I hope this small research effort is
convincing evidence that "one stroke allocation is enough." The scorecard should be a work of art
reflecting the beauty and simplicity of the game itself. Superfluous stroke allocations represent
visual clutter and unnecessary complication.
They add nothing to the equity of competition and should be eliminated.
