2012 CONGU Changes
As I am sure many of your are aware from the EGU & SGU seminars, CONGU announced a number of changes to take effect from the 1st January 2012. We're pleased to announce that these are now all live in your system and will apply automatically for any competitions from now on. Previous competitions will not be effected, even if you reopen them.
Exceptional Scoring Reduction
This is probably the most significant addition to the rules, which will recommend a further ESR adjustment to a player's handicap when they return a nett differential of -4 or better in a competition, or away score. The process is fairly straightforward, but may require a little caution now when closing competitions. On finalising a qualifying competition, if any score will trigger an ESR then you will be presented with a new dialog, showing any players who are recommended for a reduction. Choose yes or no for each, and then click apply.
This will then make the adjustments to the players as per the CONGU formula, and will also for convenience email the players if they have a valid address in the system. The date of the adjustment will be the same day as the competition, which is important to note should the competition be reopened.
On reopening a competition, all ESR scores that were triggered by it are removed. This will update those players handicaps, as well as the adjustment they would have received in the competition anyway, as per normal. For this reason, administrators should be more vigilant than ever in ensuring that competitions are promptly finalised and are only reopened in exceptional circumstances.
This does not apply to clubs in Scotland.
Competition Scratch Score
There have been a few tweaks to the CSS calculation, taking effect in 2012. The main one is that rather than using SSS + 2 to work out the percentage of the field performing well, it is now based on the number of players who are within their buffer zone in categories 1,2 & 3 (& 4 for ladies comps). There is also a new small field calculation which is used for fields of less than 10.
Handicap Status
In Scotland only, any player who has played in at least 3 qualifying competitions in the previous calendar year will have a 'c' shown by their handicap, to demonstrate that it is 'competitive'.
Annual Review
There are a few tweaks to the annual review calculations, primarily to provide more recommendations for handicap increases to those who have played in less than 7 competitions.
9 Hole Competitions
Away players may now take part in 9 hole qualifying competitions.
Centralised Database of Handicaps for Scotland and Wales
intelligentgolf is fully tested and ready to go for the CDH in Scotland and Wales.
Password Requirements for Category 1 Player Changes
There is a new method of generating a password which is required whenever you try to give a clause 23 adjustment to a category 1 player, or that would take a player into category 1. We are discussing with CONGU if we can provide the calculation to our County Union customers as part of their website to ease administration.
