British Columbia’s active season officially begins from March 1, but your club may effectively extend your "inactive seaons" should local conditions warrant the extension. Very few clubs would be ready for active posting by March 1. If your club observes unofficial Winter Handicaps, then you may select a resumption date from the dates below and notify us (via email tosupport@britishcolumbiagolf.org) preferably at least one week prior to the date:
a. March 1
b. April 1
c. April 15
d. May 1
Consider this before you open for posting
The biggest factor in determining a player’s handicap factor is the course rating assigned to each tee box. An increase of 18 yards for women and 22 yards for men will add one tenth of one stroke to the course rating. When we open the posting season too soon, we ask our members to start recording scores on a golf course that is playing considerably longer than our members are used to playing. This causes scores to go up and differentials to be higher.
It means that the golfers who can’t wait to start the year and play frequently will be adding scores to their scoring file that are higher than they normally score, resulting in an increase in handicaps. Just about the same time these avid golfers’ handicaps go up the weather and playing conditions improve and clubs start running events. Guess who starts to win everything in sight?
The same things happen to members who go south for the winter. When they come home they are asked to post scores from rounds played in active seasons. Given that they have just returned from playing in mid-season conditions their handicaps will likely be reduced at the same time as they start posting scores on courses that are much longer than they normally play. Let’s pay a little more intention to when we open the score posting season and help reduce these anomalies.
Is your course ready to post scores?
There can be very little doubt that weather patterns are changing across the country and we are seeing these changes as we open up the golf season each year. It seems our winters are a little longer with more snow, severe weather while providing near drought conditions in the summer.
These weather patterns can make a big difference to our member’s handicap factors and it is something that each clubs handicap committee needs to start building into the clubs posting schedule. Adverse conditions, such as snow, heavy rain, or even extreme heat will affect the courses normal scoring difficulty (effective playing length). The committee should remember that each course was rated based on the playing conditions as they may be on July 1st of each year. If the effective playing length of the course cannot be maintained by placing yardage markers forward when the course is wet, or back when the course is dry and hard, the committee should determine the course is closed for posting.