Twelve of us are heading to Scotland for a 10 day golf trip in a couple of weeks. We'll be playing 10 rounds and have set up some interesting matches along with the requisite wagering. Our handicap indices range from 4.0 to 16.5.

 My question is...does anyone know of a fair way to adjust handicaps once or twice over the course of the trip to account for players playing well above or below their handicaps? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

If you can work out your handicap then just adjust each players handicap after each event.

You could also have a one shot deduction for the winner of each events, etc.

Russ

Jim, you could also take Russ's suggestion a step further, similar to which I've used in a society before.

Anyone who wins automatically gets a 2 shot reduction.

Anyone scoring more than36 points ie to their handicap   then drop them a full shot per extra point

You could always use the first 2 rounds as friendlies and work out the average handicap from those. We did this when we set up our society and found that it seemed to work pretty well as no one has ever won with more than 36 points, usually around 34 points wins with most people scoring over 30. You find that potential bandits can't play 2 'bad' rounds in succession and expect to get away with it in the comps. Still penalise the winners with 2 shots reduction and 1 shot for 2nd and 3rd. This also gives other players a slightly better chance so it's not the same people winning everything.

If you had access to the internet you could enter the scores on here and let golfshake do the work. (Surprised Darren didn't suggest this or maybe he was being bashful 

Failing that I would agree with Darren's suggestion but also put anyone shooting less than 30 up 0.5 and under 25 up 1.0.  If you don't do this a lot of you will be playing off very low handicaps by the 10th round as the group handicaps will be cut by 18 at least collectively.

Thanks to all. I appreciate your input. I've considered adjusting after each round (for instance, if your hcp is 8 and you shoot 10 over, then you're a 9 on the next round), but thought this approach could set up for some potentially wild swings in hcp from round to round. I'm inclined to take an average of three rounds and adjust from that point. Thanks again.

We play for money each day 1ast,2nd and 3rd but also have an eclectic score for a trophy (a shield) after 5 rounds. The winner each day gets dropped 5 shots but his eclectic Hcp remains the same this allows for others to win a day .Second and third win money but no drop so the art is to keep coming 2nd or 3rd which obviously you have no control over. We have 12 guys on tour and in 10 years don't think anyone has won 2 days with the 5 shot cut but still may come 2nd or 3rd. Nobody in our group shoots below their hcp on tour as there is too much alcohol involved,so nobody has any real hang ups about Hcp's in our group.Have a good trip I'm jealous never played Scotland.