Now that the 2024 BJG Regular Season is over, I must examine the current 2024 BJG handicaps.

Usually, I would not change handicaps, but then again, we have never had seven new members in one year, all decent Golfers.

As mentioned before, I've been using FringeGolfers.com, a free and fair handicap system, since 2020. It has proven to be an objective tool for Broken Joe GOLF.

While the handicaps of our long-standing members continue to adjust based on their multiple years of scores in the system, our new members have been using their initial handicaps.

FringeGolfers.com has current, updated handicaps for all the 2024 BJG members. As the BJG Fed Up Cup playoffs kick off, this is an excellent opportunity to level the playing field. 

The updated 2024 BJG Handicaps are:

The World Handicap System (WHS) uses an average-based calculation, using the best 8 scores from the last 20 rounds.  FringeGolfers.com uses an average-based calculation, using the best 10 scores from the previous 20 rounds.

BJG only counts scores for between 11 and 14 rounds of golf a year because we only play once every two weeks. Of course, these numbers depend on whether you make the playoffs, play in the Winter Classic, and how many rounds you missed during the regular season.

For example, this is my handicap sheet today and after the 2024 BJG Championship.

As you can see, four of these scores are from 2023, and one is from 2022, when I won the Winter Classic Championship.

This was never a big deal because, until this year, all BJG members had multiple years of scores to consider. Looking at these rounds, I wonder if there wasn’t a more accurate way to calculate our yearly handicaps, especially since we only play every two weeks.

In the Clubhouse, after the BJG Championship round, we also kicked around changing the handicaps from counting the best ten out of twenty rounds to the best FOUR out of EIGHT rounds or something along those lines.  At least with this change, theoretically, you would have a handicap based on this year’s performance rather than from the last two or even three years ago.

If we chose the best four scores out of ten rounds, we would use the same percentage as the WHS and stay closer to the current 12-month cycle.

I may try the 4 and 9 handicaps for the 2024 Winter Classic and form a Handicap Committee to examine this issue more thoroughly.

At the end of the day, my goal is to put together a competitive, fun, and fair golf league for all of the members to enjoy.

Respectfully,

Broken Joe,

Commissioner