Ach, I have a real bee in my bonnet about Handicap Shoots!!
The premise is sound - trying to find a way to somewhat level the playing field so that everyone can compete together, especially when there can be a lot of variety in skill and bowstyle - but the implementation is flawed!
Admittedly we will never have a perfectly fair system to every person, but the current system could be made better.
Rather than cap performances that are above an expected amount I have a different suggestion.
I propose that handicap competitions should be awarded based not on handicap-adjusted scores, but instead on the number of handicap points a score improves by.
Each handicap point represents an increase in accuracy of 3.6%*. Therefore, to assess which archer has truly outdone themselves the most at a shoot we should be looking at who has had the highest percentage increase in accuracy.**
To illustrate this take the following example of two archers shooting a Portsmouth handicap shoot.
Archer A:
- Handicap: 79
- Expected Portsmouth score: 207
- Allowance on a Portsmouth: 1233
- Score on day: 243
Archer B
- Handicap: 12
- Expected Portsmouth score: 594
- Allowance on a Portsmouth: 846
- Score on day: 598
If we go on adjusted scores then archer A wins 1476-1444, a solid 32 points ahead.
However, archer A's score on the day gives them a handicap of 76, 3 points or 11% more accurate than their average.
Archer B, on the other hand, has a handicap of 7 on the day, an improvement of 5 points or 19% more accurate than average.
Clearly archer B is the one who has most outperformed their expectations - almost twice as much as archer A! - but they lose out due to the flawed system.
(NB The handicap equations can be used to give intermediate scores e.g. at handicaps of 13.0, 13.5, 14.0, 14.5, etc. if required for solving ties.)
In addition to this clubs should enforce the rule that archers must submit properly calculated handicaps based off three scores from the past year, and do not use just one out of date score to get a handicap from archers who cannot do this - this is often how these '1750+' scores come about. The rules clearly state that if you cannot calculate a handicap on the day of the shoot then you are treated as having a handicap of 0.
This topic is a particularly sore point with me because one of my clubs runs a handicap shoot every month that gets great engagement, but I am always destined to come low down as a decent
compound archer, beaten by scores of juniors and beginners. The same is also true at our county end of year shoot.
PS - I am not trying to diminish your achievement in any way AJBrady. In this case the system happened to work since, as you say yourself, you were the only archer who shot better than average on the day.
*For a low-on-the-maths explanation of how handicaps work you may find
this link useful.
**It is worth noting that AGB handicap improvement medals are awarded based on the largest handicap points change over a year. Why should the same logic not apply to handicap competitions.