NEW SCORING SYSTEM

 

When the Kennedy Cup was created, our goal was a fun day out with family. We were all relatively similar in golfing ability, and the hope was that someone different might win each year. Over the years, players have gotten better and worse, and the gap between the best and the worst has grown. While we put some handicaps in for the back of the pack, including capping the score at three over par and implementing the Callaway system, this hasn’t prevented the same core group of people from winning every year, While there were exceptions, the Callaway system tended to reward inconsistent players and still did not provide the worst golfers a real chance at winning. It tended to bunch the scores together, but not significantly change their ranking. The best answer to this would be to play against handicaps, however, a lot of people in this tournament are not regular players and do not have a regular handicap.

 

With this in mind, we’ve tried to create a new scoring system, ditching the Callaway completely. The low gross competition will still continue for anyone who wishes to compete for it. It will be played by strict rules of golf, and the low score wins. Alternately, players can choose to play in the new scramble format. Players need to choose either low gross play or scramble before starting the round.  If there are less than 5 players opting for Low Gross, there will not be a recognized winner.

 

The scramble will be played in teams of two, and you can choose your own partner.  If you don’t choose, we can assign a partner for you. Both members obviously will need to be in the same foursome. Both players will hit a tee shot, then you pick up the worse shot and both players will play from the better ball location. Continue this with each shot, including putts, until the ball is in the hole. Mark your team’s actual score on your scorecard and move on to the next hole. The way this will be scored gets complicated, but you don’t need to worry about the new scoring while you’re playing. While other scrambles have rules regarding each team having to use a certain number of each player’s shots, we will not be doing that for now. In theory, a team could use the shots from one excellent player the whole round, but that wouldn’t change the same core group winning every year. This is why the scoring needs to be a little more complicated.

 

BEWARE:  This is where it gets complicated explaining how the scoring will be calculated.  Like with Callaway, you don’t need to know how it works to play.  You can stop reading here if you wish.  Just record your team’s score for each hole and you’re done.  I’ve written a spreadsheet to do all the calculations.  You’ve been warned :)

 

Instead of scoring in the traditional manner against par, we will be scoring with a Stratified Modified Stableford system. The way the Stableford works is you get points for how well you do compared to par, and lose points for exceeding par. As an example, when the pros use this method, they get 5 points for an Eagle, 2 points for a Birdie, O for par, -1 for Bogey, and -3 for a Double Bogey or worse. In this system, the winner is the player with the highest point total, not the fewest strokes. If we just followed this system, the back of the pack still would not have a chance, so we are going to change the points scored for each scenario based on the ability of the golfers, essentially giving the worse golfers a handicap.

 

The next issue is how we delineate who should be under which scoring system, since a lot of golfers don’t have regular handicaps. Based on Kennedy Cup historical scoring, golfers will be classified as either an “A” golfer, a “B”,  a “C”,  a “D” or an “E”. Regularly scoring in the 70s makes you an “A” golfer.  80s will make you a “B” golfer, 90s are “C” golfers, 100s are D and 110+ are “E”. If anyone is offended by their classification, they are free to move up, but you can not move down. New players will be asked to give an honest assessment. (This is about FUN.  Don’t lie). If both members of the team are the same classification, you will use that scoring chart. If the two members are different classifications, you use the scoring chart of the better golfer. For example, if an “A” and a “C” golfer are paired together, they use the “A” chart.

 

Here are the charts that we will start off with. We will see how it goes this year, and this may be dramatically altered in future years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When testing this on past year’s scores, the better golfers in each group, i.e. lows 80s vs high 80s players, tending to score better, even when a lows player had a relatively bad round and the high 80s had a good one.  This is the opposite of what we want, since a good round relative to your usual should be rewarded.  Therefore, like Callaway does, we’ve added a “fudge” factor of 3.  This is subtracted from the low 80s Stableford final score, and added to to the high 80’s players.  The mid range player doesn’t require a fudge factor.  This results in better accuracy to what we are trying to achieve.

 

When playing, you don’t need to worry about this chart. You just enter your team’s score on the scorecard, and the computer will figure out your Stableford score after the round. The winner of the low gross and both members of the winning scramble team will appear on the trophy. Keep in mind this is all in an attempt to make this more fun, unpredictable, and inclusive. It may essentially be like picking a winner out of a hat, but how you golf will influence your chances of winning. We will reassess the chart and fudge factor after this year and adjust accordingly.  This is a work in progress.  We think this is a good way to give everyone a decent chance to win. If you find this too complicated, you always have the option to play low gross as we have in the past (you’ll just miss out on the fun :)).

 

2022 Update:

In reviewing this first year's (2022) points with the new system, most scramble teams were in the 20-25 point range with all ability groups represented.  One outlier was winners Paul and Sean, who scored 35 points while shooting an 86 for the round.  Since they significantly over-performed their D low ranking, this higher score was expected.  When I ran the scramble calculations on the low gross players, I got expected scores with a few exceptions.  Brian (16), Joe (21), Kyle (19.5) and Ted (16) all got between 16 and 21 points solo.  Had they paired with another player, their points would presumably bump up, making them competitive with the other scramble teams.  Luc (EL) shot a 95 on his own, and would have scored 41 points.  While he had a good day, his grouping was too low as he improved almost 20 strokes playing alone.  Lisa Galas scored 31 points on her own and was also ranked a little too low.  Another outlier was last place Jim and Connor with only 3 points.  Jim was also the only B group player.  Running point calculations on Ian's (AM) past couple of solo scores, put him in the single point range.  I updated the scoring charts for the A and B players to bring them up to par with the other groups.  After the updates, Ian is now scoring around 15 alone and Jim and Connor moved up to 16.5.  The closeness of the scores across other ability groups, and being able to account for anomalies, leads me to believe the handicapping chart is pretty good for now, but the group that each player is assigned to will change to bunch the points scored closer.  A problem we realized is that we will no longer have individual scores for scramble players to re-rank players for next year .  If a player has an actual handicap, we will use that to assign a group to the player.  Otherwise if players improve/worsen we will go on the honor system for player adjustments.  As the goal is parity, every year the winners will move up in grade and the losers down, bringing us more towards parity.  So Paul and Sean will go up 2/3 of a full letter grade each (from DL to CM, and EM to DH).  Those grades would have resulted in a 17.5 score this year.  Lower than the target 20-25 but I think the winners should be significantly hindered, making them much less likely to win again.  Similarly, we will move this year's last place team, Jim and Connor, down 2/3 of a full letter grade (now CM and EM).  That, combined with the chart changes, would have been a 19.5 this year.  As far as the other players, we will move Joe (winner), Luc and Lisa G up (now BH, DL and DH).  This puts them in the range comparable to the other solo players. Recalculating this year's scores with those adjustments brought everybody closer to that 20-25 range, thus providing everybody a shot at winning.

 

Again, this is a work in progress and will be adjusted accordingly.  We were missing some of the better players in the family this year, so next year we may have to make more adjustments when we get more data.

 

 

2023 Update:

This year's tournament had most teams in the 20's, and they will not be adjusted.  The winners were an out-lier at 52 points.  I'm moving them each down 4 steps for next year, which would have put them at 25.5 this year.  On the other end, Deanna and Kate only scored 7 points.  I will adjust them back to the max handicap, which would have put them at 13 points this year.  Also, Jim and Joanna have scored a little lower than the average both years, so I am going to increase their handicaps as well, placing them at what would have been a 23 this year.  Lastly Brian and Ted will have their handicaps reduced for next year as well, putting them at what would have been in the mid 20's. Parity Rules.

 

2024 Update:

There was an error in the scores I posted earlier that didn't affect this year's results.  I had posted Thom's group with a 51.5.  That was based on Thom having the lowest handicap, but Ryan's is actually lower.  When we recalculate based on Ryan, their group score was 21.5.  As a threesome, they were ineligible to win but this brings them back to the pack.

 

I was in another ineligible threesome.  As inconsistent players, there were several times where the third person "saved" us.  Had we paired any twosome from that group, we would have scored significantly lower than our 29.5.  The lesson is, unsurprisingly, a third person is a huge advantage.  If we ever allow threesomes, we will have to add a significant penalty factor.  We shot 3 over.  Good Foursomes will shoot 10-15 under, so I'm guessing good threesomes will prob shoot about 5 under.

 

Sean won a second time, this time with a different partner.  He and Andrew put up a 41.  Andrew was a bit of an unknown, and his handicap my be inaccurate, but the score was based on Sean's handicap and he told me they did use more of his shots.  As winners, they will both have their handicaps adjusted down.  Sean is moving from a DH to a CH, and Andrew from EL to DL.  These new handicaps would have given them a 20.5 this year.

 

Maura and Luc didn't play scramble ball.  They each played their own ball.  We took the better of the 2 scores for each hole, giving them a 15.  Had they played 1 ball, their score would have been higher.

 

John and Denise were also outside the bell curve.  So I'm adjusting John's handicap from BH to CM.  CM is a mid 90's golfer, and John is better than that, but we are trying to make the scores all fall in the same range.

 

Kevin and Evan were in the same boat.  Kevin told me he hasn't played in a few years so we will keep him here for now.

 

Lastly, David and Gina.  I am moving David from BL to BH.  This will put them closer to the fold.

 

PS In moving people's handicaps and recalculating, I've noticed the fudge factor might need to be adjusted for the higher handicaps.  When I tested this system, I used the lower handicaps and came up with +/- 3 as a good difference from the mid score.  The difference between a BH and a CL is usually pretty close.  The difference between a DH and an EL is too big a gap, however, and much bigger than the difference between DM and DH or EL and EM.  The higher handicaps may need a bigger fudge factor to tighten the gaps.  I will look at this further, running some numbers, and post if any changes are made.

 

Pre 2025 Update

 

In thinking about the above paragraph a different way, it is more obvious.  The M player is predicted to score in the middle of their group's range i.e. an AM player shoots about 75, a BM 85 etc.  The L and H shoot in the lows and highs of their range respectively.  An AL shoots 72 and an AH 78, 3 points from the middle.  The A,B,C and D ranges all cover around 10 points, and the 3 point fudge factor works.  The E group covers from roughly 110 to 126 however.  Just increasing the factor punishes EL, therefore the E group fudge factor should be shifted and bumped to -2, +2, and +6 points (L,M,H) to better cover that range of points.

 

2025 Update

 

9 of the 14 scores this year were in the 20s, and 4 more were below 35. There was only one big outlier.  Our winners, Thom and William, had 39.  They were both DH this year, and as is the usual practice to increase parity, they will be dropped to DLs for next year.  I also moved Jenna from a BM to a BH, and Donald from a BM to a BL.  This would have brought both of them closer to the middle this year.  Lastly, I dropped Andrew a full letter last year after he won, from EL to DL.  He was the higher handicap player last year.  This year he had a new partner and was the lower. I may have dropped him too much.  I moved him back to a DH to move him back to the middle of the standings.

 

 

 

A Group

B Group

C Group

D Group

E Group

 

(Updated after 2022)

Eagle

5

6.5

8

11

15

Birdie

2

3

4.5

6.5

9

Par

1

1.5

2

4

7

Bogey

0

0.75

1

2

3

Double

-1

-0.75

-0.5

0

1

Triple

-2

-1.25

0

0

0