DEAR MOLLY

I love match play but I absolutely hate the “wheel” method of allocating who gets how many strokes. I feel like I’m never getting strokes on the right holes and always giving them on the wrong holes. Can you tell me how to learn to love the wheel? 

Sometimes a question stumps Molly. This one did because she never learned to love the wheel in recreational rounds, much less defend it for use in match play competitions. Thankfully, the CGA’s in-house handicapping guru came to the rescue and now, while Molly can’t say she loves the wheel, she at least gets along with it.

First, for those of you who have never heard of the wheel, here’s the inside scoop using the common scenario of a 6-6-6 match you and three friends are having for quarters. The 6-6-6 means you each will get to team up with each of the other three players for six holes, in some order that you establish up front.

And someone will say, “We’ll wheel off Fred Flintstone for strokes because he’s got the lowest course handicap.”

This means that instead of taking pops on holes according to your course handicap, conveniently found nowadays on the GHIN app, you are going to take pops on the holes by way of a Fred Flintstone handicap. For example, if your course handicap is 14 but FF’s is 4, you are getting strokes only on the 10 hardest holes (as determined by the little numbers on the scorecard that are not a hole’s par) while FF is getting no strokes at all. Then if Barney Rubble’s a 10 and Wilma is a 12, they’ll get strokes off Fred on the six hardest and eight hardest holes, respectively.

This means you’ll have to play Barney and Wilma even on the six hardest holes and Wilma even on the next two hardest holes. I always thought this wasn’t fair, because I want strokes on the harder holes rather than where they’re falling, on the 7-8-9-10 handicapped holes.

Yet, on that rare day when I’m Fred and the one giving strokes, I’m not even getting course pops on the hardest hole, which doesn’t feel right either.

So I asked the experts at the CGA, “Who will defend the wheel?” Up stepped Aaron Guereca, the CGA’s Managing Director, Clubs and Facilities, to point out that if we didn’t use the wheel and simply allocated strokes against the golf course, Fred would get pops on 1-4, Barney on 1-10 and Wilma on 1-12 while I would get pops on 1-14. Using that method, I’m getting my advantage on even easier holes and Fred is not giving strokes to anyone on those four hardest holes.

The wheel, however, simplifies all the math and eliminates a crowd of pops on card.

“The Rules of Handicapping require that strokes be allocated across the entire golf course in order of difficulty, not concentrated only on the hardest holes,” says Aaron. “The system is built to create equity over all 18 holes, not just the ones that feel most important in a particular matchup.

“So, while it may look odd in this specific pairing, the current allocation is actually preserving your advantage — not taking it away.”

Of course, any kind of match play handicapping works best when a golf course has properly ranked its holes, and that’s up to the CGA member course and/or its men’s and women’s clubs to oversee. Often the clubs do straight-line rankings based on their collective average scores rather than consulting the USGA guidelines. And many do not provide separate hole rankings for women. The CGA, while it does not have jurisdiction over allocating handicap strokes at individual courses, can and does help.

Then there’s the USGA book on handicapping. I scrolled through it – yes, my eyes started to glaze over – and offer this synopsis:

Any method of stroke allocation has its pros and cons. The wheel is not your enemy, so just try to get along.

Do you have a question about golf etiquette, golf relationships or the culture of golf in Colorado? Email it to Molly McMulligan, the CGA’s on-the-course advisor on how to have more fun on the golf course, and follow @MollyMcMulligan on Instagram. Her creator, researcher and writer is golf journalist and CGA member Susan Fornoff.