MEMBERS 2009

All WLS members who participate on the WLS Offline Tour will be classed as ACTIVE and have a green status indicator. Any players missing/failing to complete 3 consecutive events become IN-ACTIVE and have a yellow status indicator. This indicator also identifies any new members participating in their second event and any earnings or sub-event points are limited to 75% of their full value. Both returning members and new members are not eligible to win a handicap event when they have a yellow status indicator. New members playing in their debut event have a red status indicator and any earnings or sub-event points are limited to 50% of their full value and players are not eligible to win the handicap event.

Any player winning a regular Handicap or Scratch season event will have their membership upgraded to gold (on the relevant Money List) which also grants them an invite to the WLS Champion of Champions event at the end of the year, as long as their member status is ACTIVE (for the Handicap Tour) at the conclusion of the WLS Tour Championship. Any non-event winning ACTIVE players, any IN-ACTIVE or NEW MEMBERS/SKILL after the conclusion of the WLS Tour Championship will be able to participate in the WLS Challenge Trophy, but only those with fully ACTIVE tour status will be eligible to win the Handicap Tour event.

Players handicaps do not lapse in anyway and any player returning to the tour resumes at their previous playing handicap, unless they are changing skill, when the appropriate handicap ruling will be applied.

HANDICAPS 2009

All new Offline Tour members or members changing to a new skill level will receive a starting handicap of 3.00, which is then adjusted based upon scores submitted. All handicaps are rounded up/down as required, with any player on a handicap of ?.60 being rounded up eg. 2.600 plays off 3. Any player reverting back to a previously used skill level, will resume at the handicap as it was at the time of the prior change.

Instead of a player having his handicap adjusted based upon the difference of his net total against the event par, the adjustment will now be taken from the difference of the players net total against the tournament average score or TAS. Only players who complete all 4 rounds of an event will contribute scores towards the calculation of the TAS (and whose scores are not in excess of 25 over par). Adjustments for increases and decreases will remain as they are now with the net total below the TAS multiplied by 0.125 and the net total above the TAS multiplied by 0.06 to a maximum reduction of of 1.50 shots er event.

The handicapping increases and reductions are applied in this way to mirror real life where handicaps never reduce for bad scores at the same rate they increase for good scores. A further reduction may be applied for new members/skill changes only based upon observation of their scores, but this ruling will only be applied in exceptional circumstances.

Any player who plays in a tournament but doesn't complete all 4 rounds, for whatever reason, will not receive a handicap adjustment.

No handicap adjustments are applied to scores submitted in the season ending WLS Grand Slam of Golf as only played over 36 holes.