Thread
:
Thoughts on Sandbaggers in Tournaments
View Single Post
08-22-2012, 09:47 PM
#
1
himecthekWiff
Join Date
Oct 2005
Posts
374
Senior Member
Thoughts on Sandbaggers in Tournaments
I've been playing golf for a year now, and at the urging of my friends, decided to join their club at the beginning of the year and start playing in tournaments. When I started, my handicap didn't even register...I was a 40+ (so 36.4). In the first few tournaments, after calculating for course slope, I was getting 40 strokes per round. Even with so many strokes, I wasn't coming close to winning....which I was fine with.
Then as I started to improve, I consistently was able to shoot better than my handicap. In our tournaments, it seems shooting a couple strokes under your handicap is usually good enough to be in contention. I've managed to win 3 rounds this year, but each time I won was with a continually decreasing handicap.
I won the first tournament getting 40 strokes. (Gross 108/Net 68)
I won the second tournament getting 36 strokes. (Gross 102/Net 66)
I won the third tournament getting 31 strokes. (Gross 92/Net 61)
Back to my point. On the driving range and in the clubhouse, I overhear a lot of chatter about sandbaggers. I hear a lot of the members talking about various tournaments where guys who were clearly better than their handicaps were coming in and winning the prize money. In one of the tournaments a gentleman who was paired with our group was noticeably irritated to find out he (19 HCP) was in the same flight as me (36 HCP). I ended up winning that tournament, and while he congratulated me, it was not without making several comments about my handicap and whatnot.
I don't really even care about winning....I would much rather get better at golf than win a tournament. In fact in two of the rounds where I "won" I was EXTREMELY irritated with my play that day....but because I played slightly better than my handicap, it was good enough for a "win". Further, it isn't as if I have won each time with the same handicap. In my defense, I have been able to win each time with a handicap that has dropped by 5 strokes each time. This next time I imagine my HCP will drop by another 4-5 strokes (putting me around 26 or so) making it even more difficult for me to win. Either way I feel bad about winning because honestly...I still suck! While my friends congratulate me and make a big deal, I really find it hard to actually feel any type of accomplishment for winning because I don't feel like my round was anywhere near as good as theirs and that the system is really flawed when somebody like me can go stink it up, topping balls, chunking everything, and still WIN?!?! Makes no sense.
So I guess my question is...what is the general consensus on super-high handicappers like myself playing in the tournaments? Do we even belong in torunaments? Are we spoiling it for everybody else in our flight because of our ridiculously high handicaps? In our club, they usually have 3 flights, and the 18+ HCP's seem to always go into the 3rd flight. I almost never see an 18 handicapper winning the 3rd flight...seems to always be a low-30/high-20 who takes it. It's almost like 30+ should be in their own flight.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw it out there. I hear all the complaints about sandbagging and I can't help but think these people are talking about ME. After the round, it's common for everybody to hang out in the clubhouse and watch scores get posted on the big leaderboard and most of the time I'm glad most of these guys don't know my name!
Quote
himecthekWiff
View Public Profile
Find More Posts by himecthekWiff
All times are GMT +1. The time now is
09:03 AM
.