Question:

The way you win handicapped tournaments is you find a way to pad your handicap a few strokes.  That’s the only method that works, at least for low handicappers.  There’s no way a golfer whose ability is accurately reflected by a 5 handicap can win a tournament in the vast majority of men’s clubs.  Shoot 70?  Not bloody likely for a real 5.

Your advice to "find a way to pad your handicap a few strokes" is really a recommendation to cheat.  Have you proclaimed this as a good idea to your tournement playing partners?  Your idea may sound honest and provocative in the relatively anonymous forum of the internet but this idea expressed on the 18th green might be taken as skulduggery. – Kevin

Response:

You’re talking about adopting the UK approach to handicapping.

which i think is what we use here in oz. here is a short summary for those interested, plus some comments with regards to "padding" your handicap. 1. to get a h/cap a player must belong to a club affiliated with the australian golf union (agu – australian equivalent of the usga sort of). 2. your initial h/cap comes from submitting 5 cards of which the average is taken (all 5 count) 3. your handicap is then adjusted as you submit competition cards for review. if you are out practising etc you don’t submit. 4. the handicap is typically adjusted against the competition course rating (ccr). if you are above the ccr expect 0.1 shot back. if you shoot the ccr there is no change to your handicap. if you shoot below the ccr the handicapper lowers your handicap accordingly depending on your current handicap. for example i think a 36 handicapper loses 0.5 shots for every shot they break the ccr by, whereas a 2 handicapper loses only 0.1 for each shot they break by. i don’t know if this solves entirely sandbagging. it is more difficult to pad your handicap in a short amount of time though i guess people still try. also you find your handicap is pretty stable either coming down pretty slowly or going up slowly, though obviously there are exceptions to the rule. i’d like to hear from those of you in the us who would like to compare the pros and cons of this method against the usga method. — peace brett brett r fenton school of civil engineering university of nsw australia

Response:

You’re talking about adopting the UK approach to handicapping. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – If anyone knows of such a rule, please respond. On the chance that there is not any USGA rule to take care of this problem, maybe someone has had experience with this (I’d be surprised if this hasn’t occurred many times before) and can lend their solution. Thanks in advance for your help. Tournament Handicapping, that is making a handicap from tournaments played rather than just regular play, discourages the perennial sandbagger.  In my association, we used the lower of the two–that from only tournaments or that from regular rounds–for the tournament