Changes in Version 9.0 - 2016 Edition

What's New in HandicapMaster 9.0

• Introduction
• CONGU Handicapping
• EGA Handicapping
• Society Handicapping
• Membership
• Distribution Lists
• Player Entry
• Central Databases of Handicaps (inc. GOLFNET in Ireland)
• Competitions
• Best-of Series
• Order of Merit
• Knock-out Draws
• Reports
• Master Scoreboard
• Subscriptions, Invoicing and Payments option
• ClubWebsite
• Other

Introduction

CONGU Handicapping

CONGU® UHS 2016 Changes

Initial Handicap Awards

• A new Handicapping menu option Initial Handicap Card is added to enable you to record the scores.
• A new Initial Handicap Cards list is added to the Handicapping place, through which you may view, edit and cancel Initial Handicap cards.
• Once the necessary number of cards have been entered for a player, the system will recommend a handicap award (in conjunction with Unified Handicapping System Clause 16, Appendix J and Appendix K).
• The scores returned for handicap award are displayed in the player's handicap record.

CONGU® Club and CONGU® Disability Golf Handicaps

• CONGU® Club Handicaps may be allotted to members of any age group, previously these were limited to Juniors.
• A new report listing members with CONGU® Club Handicaps and CONGU® Disability Golf Handicaps is added.

Handicap Status

• Competition/Non-Competition status of players' Handicaps is extended from England, Scotland and Wales to all countries.
• Different regulations for Handicap Status in operation between England/Wales and Scotland are now replaced with a new, standardised, set of regulations. Highlights of the new system include
  • Handicap Status will be reassessed for all members automatically on 1st January each year.
  • Restoration of Competition status now requires Handicap Committee intervention (no longer automatic as previously in England and Wales).
  • The Committee has the opportunity to set a new Handicap award when the Competition status is reinstated (i.e. change the player's Handicap).
  • Entries are added to the players' handicap records when they lose or regain Competition status.
• Notation for Competition Handicap status ('c' character) is now displayed against players' Playing Handicaps, rather than Exact Handicaps.
• Customers in Scotland and Ireland now have the choice whether to allow players with Non-Competition handicaps to enter a competition, or enter but not be listed in the results, or not be allowed to enter a competition, through a setting in the competition template.
• A new item Handicaps pending reinstatement is added to the Handicapping place. This lists those players who have returned sufficient scores since they lost their Competition handicap to warrant their Competition status reinstating and provides tasks to reinstate the handicaps.
• A new menu item 'Change Competition Handicap Status' is added to player's list pop-up menus, enabling Competition Handicap status to be changed for a chosen player.
• HandicapMaster now displays a notification to advise when there are players due their Competition handicap to be reinstated.

Handicap Adjustments

• Handicaps for players with Club and Disability Handicaps now increased by 0.1 when returning scores outside of their Buffer Zone.
• Men's handicaps are prevented from increasing from category 4 to category 5 (unless they hold a Disability handicap).
• Ladies' handicaps are prevented from increasing from category 5 to category 6 (unless they hold a Disability handicap).
• In Ireland, the previous restriction (UHS Clause 4.5(c)) to limit handicap increases during a calendar year to 2 strokes is amended to a limit of 1 stroke. In addition, when a handicap is increased by a manual adjustment (such as General Play, Annual Review or Continuous Handicap Review), this no longer resets the minimum value of the year. Players are likely to be immediately blocked from their handicaps increasing any further that year. The previous '2SL' indicator used in players' records is replaced with '1SL', now displayed in the CONGU Ident column.
  There continues to be no limit for a player's handicap to increase in England, Scotland and Wales.

Competition Scratch Score

• Scores for Men in category 4 are now included in the CSS calculations (unless holding a Non-Competition Handicap).

9-hole Qualifying Competitions

• Handicaps for Category 1 players now adjusted after returning scores in 9 hole Qualifying competitions.
• The previous regulation preventing a category 2 handicap being reduced into category 1 as a result of a 9 hole competition score is removed.
• Handicaps for players with Club and Disability Handicaps now increased by 0.1 when returning scores outside of their Buffer Zone.
• The number of additional Stableford Points added to players' competition scores, for handicapping purposes, now varies between 0 and 18 depending upon the competition score returned by the player.

Exceptional Scoring Reductions (ESR's)

• Lower ESR handicap adjustment applied when average of the two exceptional scoring Nett Differentials is -5.5 or -6 (i.e. Amendment to ESR tables).
• Repeated exceptional scoring no longer compounds ESR's (i.e. once an ESR is applied, a further two exceptional scores are required to trigger another ESR).
• Acceptance of ESR's into player's records is mandatory in England, Wales and Ireland. ESR's do not apply in Scotland.

Handicap Records

• CONGU Three Letter Identifiers are amended following the introduction of a revised set of codes by CONGU.
• It is now a mandatory CONGU requirement that non-qualifying singles competitions are included in the printed Handicap Records. Selection option to choose whether to include these is removed from the REPORTS > LAYOUT AND OPTIONS window.
• It is now a mandatory CONGU requirement that the list of Three Letter Identifiers is displayed on the front page of the Handicap Record report.
• The layout and content of CONGU handicap record report is amended to match new regulations from CONGU.

Away Player Handicaps

• CONGU now require Away player handicaps to be recorded as 'Exact' handicaps, to one decimal place.

Annual Review of Handicaps

• The report now includes Category 1 players.
• The report wording and layout is amended in line with the 2016 CONGU software specification.
• Players to be considered for increase; Players with a Performance against Target value of greater than 5 and three or more competitions will now have a 2 shot increase recommended. Previously a 2 shot increase was only recommended if at least seven competitions were available and the Performance against Target value was greater than 5.
• A new option to review excessive No Returns by players is included in the Annual Review Report.

Continuous Handicap Review

• A new report Continuous Handicap Review is added to identify players who have submitted handicap qualifying scores showing a current sequence of 7 or more consecutive instances of a 0.1 increase in handicap.
  Upon CONGU direction, scores returned before 1st January 2016 are excluded from this analysis.
• An notification is added that will, once a month, highlight when one or more players currently have a sequence of 7 or more consecutive 0.1 handicap increases, and provide quick access to the report.
• A new Continuous Review Increase facility is added to record a CRI adjustment for players identified by the Continuous Handicap Review.
• A new report is added to list players who have received a CRI Handicap adjustment.
• A new list showing Continuous Review Increases is added to the Handicapping place.

Supplementary Scores

• You may now record Supplementary Scores played over 9 holes (low handicap players excluded).
• You may now record Supplementary Scores for players with CONGU® Club Handicaps.
• You may now record Away Supplementary Scores for your 'home' members (CONGU regulations state that these may only be played at away clubs the player is a member of).
• The eligibility criteria allowing players to return Supplementary Scores are modified, accounting for (complex) different regional arrangements.
• The Report 'Supplementary Scores (Eligibility)' is renamed to 'Supplementary Scores (Summary)' and now lists the number of supplementary scores submitted by members and the remaining number available that may be submitted. The report also takes account of the regional variations with respect to Category 1 and now lists players with Club Handicaps too.
• The list of Supplementary Scores in the Handicapping place now shows the venue where the score was played and the number of holes played.
• When entering Supplementary Scores, you will now be asked to select the player first before entering details of the score.
• You may now view the scorecards of 'home' Supplementary Scores entered using HandicapMaster version 9.

Handicap Allowances

• CONGU has advised that handicap allowances for Four Ball Better Ball (FBBB) competitions should use 90% handicap allowance. Default allowance for FBBB competitions now set to 90%.
  
  Existing FBBB opened competitions and competition templates may be adjusted to 90% allowance as part of upgrading to 2016 software.

Player Entry

• CONGU has again made it mandatory that any Score Entry system where players enter their own scores must offer a screen for players to reduce their handicap where they have scores not yet applied to their Handicap Record (Clause 20.11). A simpler screen, requiring less clicks and presenting less wording on screen is now presented to players for this purpose.

European Golf Association (EGA) Handicapping

EGA Handicap System 2016 changes

Regional Options

• A new menu item (HANDICAPPING -> CONFIGURE HANDICAPPING RULES...) is added to allow you to select the applicable system configuration and discretionary options chosen by your national federation.

New Category 6 Handicap

• A new Category 6 is introduced, allowing Handicap awards of 37 to 54, with its own Playing Handicap calculation.

Handicap Adjustments

• Handicaps in Category 5 now increased by 0.1 when players return qualifying scores outside of their buffer zone.

9 Hole Competitions

• Players with Handicaps in Category 2 may now enter 9 Hole qualifying competitions.
• Course ratings for Front 9 and Back 9 holes are now described as 9-Hole values, not doubled as 18-Hole values(#).

Handicap Status

• Handicap designation of active/inactive no longer forms part of the EGA regulations and references relating to Handicap Status are removed.

Handicap Review

• Annual Handicap Review is replaced by Handicap Review which now recommends changes to handicaps, but does not automatically adjust handicaps. This report is now available to be run at any time of the year. It will use the player’s scores in the last 12 months (8 scores required), extending to 24 months previous if less scores than 8 in the last year. This report will not use data collected from before 2016.

Computed Buffer Adjustment (CBA)

• The CBA calculations are revised to the latest specification from the European Golf Association.

Handicap Records

• The Handicap Record report is amended to match new regulations from EGA.

Away scores

• When entering away scores, the Slope Rating of the applicable course is now requested to be input. This is required in order to be able to include these scores in the Handicap Review.

Society Handicapping

Membership

Distribution Lists

Player Entry

Central Databases of Handicaps (inc. GOLFNET in Ireland)

Competitions

Best-of Series

Order of Merit

Knock out draws

Reports

Master Scoreboard

Subscriptions, Invoicing and Payments option

Accounting Year

Competition Purse

Subscription and Invoice templates

• Split Values Equally
  • First payment adjusted for any remainder that cannot be split (this is the default for a new template).
  • Last payment adjusted for any remainder that cannot be split.
• Or Round Values
  • All payments to be whole number except First.
  • All payments to be whole number except Last.

Other

• 'Member Account Statement' becomes 'Member Purse Account Statement'
• 'Member Transaction History' becomes 'Member Purse Transaction History'
• 'Account Balances (Summary)' becomes 'Purse Balances (Summary)'

ClubWebsite

Other