Handicap Padding Example

Handicap Padding Recap

If you're a new league or adding new players to your league which have existing handicaps from another source, the Handicap Padding setting will create a number of "Padding Scores" which act as a real score in the player's score history, which is representative of the Starting Handicap that is entered for each player, up to the number of scores that you configure for this setting. This is configured with the setting "Handicap Padding Score Count" (#126). 

It's like giving a player a score history without knowing or entering actual scores into the player's Historical Score list. If you have a lot of players, this is a quick way to give them a score history. The feature is useful because it will prevent a new player's handicap from changing wildly the first few rounds of the season because there are more scores to include in their average. Padding scores are first to roll off a players score history.

When Are Padding Scores Used?

The padding scores are included in the player's calculation when the player has fewer number of scores than the "Number of Most Recent Rounds to Calculate Handicap" (setting #71). Here's a couple of examples:

Example 1:

• Number of Most Recent Rounds to Calculate Handicap: set to 5
• Handicap Padding Score Count: set to 3
• Number of Actual Scores for the Player: 0
• The system will create 3 padding scores, which is the maximum number it will create based on your settings

Example 2:

• Number of Most Recent Rounds to Calculate Handicap: set to 5
• Handicap Padding Score Count: set to 3
• Number of Actual Scores for the Player: 3
• The system will create 2 padding scores, because the player has 3 actual scores.

Example 1 - Without Handicap Padding

Let's say you have the following example of a new player Dave with a starting handicap of 10 with the following league settings:

• Player has a starting handicap of 10
• The league takes the most recent 5 rounds for handicap purposes
• Handicap % is set to 100%
• Dave has played 3 actual rounds

With Handicap Padding

The following is an example of those same scores with Handicap Padding set to 2 rounds. You'll notice that the handicap doesn't change as much from round to round with those extra 2 rounds in the average:

Example 2 - Without Handicap Padding

Now you have another player Bill and he tells you his handicap is 15, but you're not so sure about Bill, you thought he was more like an 8 or 9, but you trust him anyway. Surprisingly, he ends up shooting the same scores as Dave, so without handicap padding, they end up with exactly the same handicap.

• Player has a starting handicap of 15
• The league takes the most recent 5 rounds for handicap purposes
• Handicap % is set to 100%
• Dave has played 3 actual rounds

With Handicap Padding

Now we'll take Bill's scores, and see what his handicap would be with Handicap Padding set to 2 rounds:

So as you can see, Bill ends up with a much higher handicap using padding because his starting handicap was 15, and that starting handicap really wasn't very representative of what he actually shoots.

Conclusion

While handicap padding can be a quick way to set up new players in Golf League Tracker with a handicap, to use it successfully, you have to have reliable starting handicaps for your players. If you have a score history for players, a better option is to import those scores into Golf League Tracker in order to calculate a handicap for players at the start of the season.