This seems appropriate here.
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I know, I guess Iām not articulating well. The gross double bogey max is an advantage to the HC b/c the blow-up holes donāt hurt their quota score. They have greater variance in their hole-by-hole scores, so the double max protects them relative to medal play. Those blow-up holes are more common than a scratchās birdies.
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At my club in the regular Saturday game, we balance the high-capper advantage in the quota game by have a -1 for worse than double bogey. Over time that helps low caps and high caps come out pretty even-- Iāve seen the numbers over a yearās worth of play.
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Linear Quota game with 36 handicap vs scratch favors the 36 very obviously. Itās just math.
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Yeah, that would be almost impossible for a scratch to win. Scratch could shoot -2 and still lose to 3 bogeys.
We left it all on the field Friday afternoon when it was toughest, kind of like that team that goes to triple OT in the divisional round, only to get blown away in the conference title game the next week
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Not obvious to all, but yeah, thatās what Iām saying.
Especially since without negative points, itās actually slightly shifted toward non-linear. Higher handicappers effectively get a bit from two of the āreasonsā I listed above.
I say obviously because scratch nominally gets quota 25% of time, and 36 gets quota 100% of time.
Itās all upside - no downside for the 36. Also iād think not as much fun.
Maybe the field was just a bunch of vanity 'caps, and anytime they post at the same place, it swings the PCC pendulum?
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Small change, but yeah.
@almostscratchonce, that could be the case. 
+2 is pretty big, but the wind and hole locations could account for all of that 2. It wasnāt a 3, after all!
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Yes, but youāre just arguing why stableford in general may favor a high handicap (based on theoretical scoring likelihood) vs stroke play, and the discussion, started by @MrVinegar206, is that the quota version of stableford is a less friendly net game.
Itās not hard to back out doing the math. Under either traditional stableford with handicaps, modified stableford with handicaps, or even modified stableford using 90% handicaps, the high handicappers have a much better chance of doing well than they do using the format we used.
Look at these two scores, one from a zero cap, and the other from a 20:
Under the quota game, the 20 HCP finishes 9 points behind the zero cap. Under a fully handicapped modified stableford (like weāre using, i.e., 0, 1, 2, 4, 8), theyād be dead even (42 points to 42 points). Under a 90% HCP modified, the 20 would still only be 5 points behind (42 to 37). And obviously in stroke play, double bogey max, the 20 would be only 3 strokes behind. Because the quota undercounts handicap, and removes net birdies, eagles, etc., it disadvantages the high caps. (And this holds true in nearly every instance. Every time the 18 or 20 cap gets a gross double, she misses out on a point sheād have gotten in net; everytime she makes a gross par, she misses out on two points, etc.)
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It is interesting given we were the only ones there that day that the PCC is exclusively based on us. However the 3rd round was even I think. I would account the first round to extremely difficult conditions from the course. The second round could be accounted for by extremely high BAC levelsā¦
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Iād like to add that I donāt think thereās any sour grapes here. I had no expectations of competing for the title even if the game had been tilted towards lower HCs. My game is dogshit right now and I didnāt even play particularly well relative to that dogshit standard. But I am interested in how the math works on these different games. Variance and all of that.
Iām a huge fan of the quota game. Itās simple and straightforward. Keeps pace of play nice and quick. And is a lot fairer to a wide range of HCs than a lot of games. But it evidently (sample size: 1 88 person tourney) benefits high HCs when played to 100%.
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Perhaps thatās the case but I donāt think people are giving enough weight to the fact that it was a competition and with that came the intense scrutiny of trying to perform in the presence of many golf podcast enthusiasts 
.
Can you even quantify that pressure?
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Given a large enough sample size, sure! 
Jesus this thread got very boring, very fast. Whereās @jimithng23 at to spice things up a little bit?
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Using these two scorecards and claiming they are comparable is in bad faith. It is a mini-psycho scorecard. An eagle + 3 birdie round is very rare for a scratch. Matty Bās 4 birdie, 14 par is far more representative of a good round for a low capper.
Also, that bottom scorecard would have actually shot well over 95, but was saved by getting to pick up on 11! holes.
These are not equivalently good rounds for each player. And the top scorecard is about as ideal of -1 net as youāll ever see.
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I guess now might be a good time to bring up the back stopping?
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