Here is all you need to know about “Soft Hat”.
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A few weeks ago, a California golfer who asked to remain nameless received what he considered a “badge of shame.”
It appears on his Ghin app, where he tracks his disability index in a form called “soft hat.”
“It feels like someone doesn’t trust me,” the golfer said.
That’s not the intention.
“Soft caps do not mean any kind of punishment,” said Lee Rainwater, USGA’s director of disability education and outreach. “Instead, making sure your (barrier index) represents the ability you show is a disability protection.”
How exactly does it work?
True to its name, the soft hat is a mechanism that automatically starts to limit the speed at which a golfer’s disability index can increase. It triggers when the player’s newly calculated index and the low barrier index (within 12 months of the recently released score) is greater than a stroke of 3.0. In these cases, any increase above 3.0 is limited to 50% of that growth. For example, if your low barrier index is 10.0 and the newly calculated number jumps to 14.0 or adds 4 strokes, the soft upper limit will be limited to half of 1. 13.5.
A soft hat is not the only hat. There is also a guarantee called Hard Hat, which limits any upward movement of the player’s obstacle to up to 5 moves above the low obstacle index.
By its essence, soft hats and hard hats can stop sandbags. But the intention behind them is not to target cheating.
They are designed with the vast majority of golfers in mind. Most golfers do not participate in the system. They want to keep an accurate record of their performance. The truth is that even the best players can suffer through a series of bad forms, during which they released a series of bad scores that unfaithfully reflect their potential abilities.
That’s where the automatic hat comes from. They adapt to these distortions.
At some point in the season, 21% of golfers were affected by soft caps, while 1.5% of golf balls were affected by hard caps.
In other words, it is not uncommon to be capped. If it happens to you, don’t treat it as a badge of dishonest. Think of it as a barrier system and keep up with how you really play it.
No obstacles? You can start the process here.
