FAQ

Q:  What is the Austin Skins League?

A:  We are just a group of 140+ golfers who like to play golf and plan a weekly skins game in the Austin area.  Its a friendly game and the skins are partially handicapped to give everyone a chance to win. Stakes are low (around $30), but enough so that prize money motivates people to compete ($700+ paid out weekly).  The goal is to provide a competitive forum 

Q:  What courses do you play?

A:  We play public courses all over the Austin area.  We frequently play municipal courses to keep costs down.  We also frequently play Star Ranch, Teravista, Falconhead, and other daily fee courses in the Austin area including courses as far away as Delaware Springs and Sun City.  We try to keep the green fees around $50 or less, so we frequently play during twilight green fees.  Occasionally we are able to play some private courses around Austin.

Q:  How much does it cost to play in the skins game?

A:  The total buy-in is usually around $30.  The buy-in is split 50/50 between skins and the low-net game.  There is also an optional $5 eagle pot.  If its your first time with us, your buy-in is only for the skins game.  (see The Game Page for details).

Q:  What if I don't have an established handicap?

A:  If you don't have an established handicap, you can declare one.  We can work with you to determine a fair handicap.  When figuring out a declared handicap, keep in mind that a handicap is not the average of all your scores.  It is the average of the BEST HALF of your scores.  Once you declare a handicap, if you shoot lower than that, your new score becomes your new handicap for our game.  Once you play with us several times, we will keep track of every score and start to keep a handicap for you.  The more you play with us, the more accurate your handicap will be.

Q:  Why do I have to play both the skins game and the low-net game?

A:  Because we use handicaps.  We require people to play in the low-net pot because its not fair to have players taking huge risks trying to win skins when they are getting strokes from their handicap and their are no consequential difference between shooting par on a hole or triple bogey.  To mitigate the incentive for taking risks and padding handicaps, and to create an incentive to shoot a low total score, we require a buy-in to the low-net game so that people will try to shoot overall good scores in addition to trying to win skins.  The results of this format have been fair, as the distribution of winnings includes players from all skill levels.  We track and publish the scoring results and the prize winnings on the Handicaps Page (look for the links at the bottom of the window containing that data).

Q:  How does the low-net game work?

A:  The low-net game works kinda like a Nassau.  The lowest net score on the front nine wins 1/3 of the pot, the lowest net score on the back nine wins 1/3 of the pot, and the lowest total net score wins 1/3 of the pot.  A players "net" score is his score minus 85% of his handicap.  Occasionally, if we do not have enough players and the pots is then not large enough, we will modify this game so that only the lowest total net score wins.  We recently use an online scoring system, which does all the heavy lifting and calculates low net scores and skins.

Q:  How does the skins game work with handicaps?

A:  We use 85% of each player's handicap and give each player a stroke on each hole in which the handicap designation is lower than or equal to the 85% handicap calculation.  In other words, if you handicap is 10, then 85% of that is 9 strokes (8.5 rounded), so you would get a stroke on the holes that have a handicap designation between 1 and 9.  Net skins are calculated using the handicaps and the pot is divided by the number of skins.  For example, if 10 people play, the pot skins will be $200 ($20 per person), and if there are 5 skins, then each skin is worth $40.  We do not permit strokes to be given on Par 3's.  We use an online scoring system, which does all the heavy lifting and calculates the net skins and low net scores.

Q:  Why do you only use 85% of a player's handicap?

A:  In order to appease both low and high handicappers.  High handicappers always want to use handicaps in a skins game, but low handicappers don't like giving strokes in a skins game.  Using 85% of the handicap is a fair compromise that give high handicappers a better chance to win some skins, but also allows low handicappers a better chance to win the low-net.  Both the skins game and the low-net game have winners that are both low handicappers and high handicappers.

Q:  How does the eagle pot work?

A:  Each week, players can choose to buy-in to the eagle pot.  Buy-in costs $5.  If someone makes an eagle, they win the pot.  If no one makes an eagle, the pot carries over to the next week.  After a carry-over, the buy-in costs $5 plus $2.50 for each week that a player missed the buy-in up to a maximum of $10 (ie: if the pot has carried over for 3 weeks, and a player missed all three previous weeks, he must pay $10 to buy-in).  Once the pot reaches $400, the winner will win 75% of the pot so that the next pot will not be zero.  Once a player opts-out of the eagle pot, they are out until the next pot.  If a player has never played with us before and would like to buy-in to the eagle pot, the buy-in is 5% of the total pot  then $5 per week like everyone else.

Q:  How was this game conceived?

A:  Most skins games are not handicapped because most people think it is just too difficult to fairly handicap a skins game; some people will tell you that its impossible. The USGA handicap system is not designed to be fair for a skins game; it is designed to allow golfers to compete in medal play comparing total scores, not hole by hole scores.  Prior to creating this game, our experience had been that gross skins games are inherently unfair to high handicappers because they rarely make birdies, so they usually don't stand a chance against very low handicappers who make a lot of birdies.  By the same token, using 100% of the full handicap is unfair to low handicappers because although high handicappers rarely make birdies, they often make pars (net birdies), so all the low handicappers skins get covered when you have a large field.  Again, our experience had been that low handicappers never wanted to participate in a handicapped skins game after they shoot a great score and make 5 or 6 birdies and lose money, which would clearly frustrate anyone.  We wanted to create a game that would attract players of all skill levels, and in order to do that, the game had to reward players who played well relative to their handicap.

The first problem we set out to fix was helping low handicappers compete against a large field of high handicappers.  We immediately thought about a "low net" game that rewarded a player who shot a great score relative to their handicap.  Then, almost at the same time, we thought the "no strokes on par 3's" rule, which would mean that real birdies on par 3's could only be covered by other real birdies, which would make low handicappers at least feel like they have a fair advantage on those holes.  This was a great start, but its only 4 holes, so the next thing we started looking at was using a partial handicap.  We started with 70% because another game around town was using that figure, so we thought it would be a good place to start, but we'd want to keep track of winnings and prize money to make sure that it truly was fair.  Remarkably, 70% turned out to be a pretty fair number, but after our analysis over the first year, we realized that we needed to change it to 80%, and add gross skins. Later, when we started attracting more lower handicap players, we analyzed the data and changed it to 85%.  Its not perfect, but we think its a pretty good effort. :-)