Handicaps/ CSS and its Calculation

I have been a bit quiet of late. Have had a bit of a lie down after the excitement of the Canter to the Cowan. We shall see how our team fare this weekend.

Over the last couple of weeks, a query emerged as to how the CSS is calculated, and why does it come up with a figure lower than the lowest score recorded.

If anyone is having trouble sleeping, I have a several copies of the CONGU Handicapping System, but in essence, only Clause 18 is relevant.

I have, in the past, manually worked out a CSS. But the Club 2000 system which runs the CONGU program, does it at a click of a mouse. So in order to check it is working correctly, I recently calculated the CSS manually, and it produced the same result.

Query 1, saw several cards having been submitted, but at that point, the CSS was lower than the lowest score. The reason for this, is at that point, no competitors in Category 1 had played in the competition. Cat 1 players push the CSS up, as they find it more difficult to have a sufficient low score to match the SSS of the course.

So to have a high CSS, we need more competitors in the 0-5 handicap range to play.

Query 2 - Only one competitor submitted a card in a medal round and scored a Nett 68. The CSS was recorded as 67. Clause 18 states that when a competition has 5 or less players, regardless of the handicap range, the CSS will be equal to the SSS of the course, which in the case of Dunkeld is 67 on the white tees and 66 on the yellow tees. Probably the reason we have more white tee medals than yellow.

So perhaps we need more medals off the Ladies' Tees - SSS 70!!