Woo-hoo! Got it figured out!!

To anyone that is interested:

The new Fort Lauderdale Handicaps formula has been figured out for use in an Excel Spreadsheet:

=IF(N2>0,ROUND((AVERAGE(SMALL(D2:W2,{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 }))-54)*0.8,0),IF(F2>0,ROUND(((SUM(D2:M2)-MAX(D2:M2)-MIN(D2:M2))/(COUNT(D2:M2)-2)-54)*0.8,0),0))

What this does is take up to each individual golfers last 20 scores (Columns Dx - Wx), and looks in the 11th slot (Nx). If there is a score in that 11th slot, it will then take the best 10 scores out of however many scores the player has, Average them out, subtract 54 (par), multiply by 80%, and Round to the closest whole number. (Similar to the USGA method for ball golf and really no easy way to bag with this method)

If the 11th slot doesnt have a score in it yet, it then looks in the 3rd slot (Fx) and sees if there is a score in there (we require 3 scores to establish a cap). If there is a score in there, then it will take all of the players scores, throw out the best and the worst, average out the rest, subtract 54 (par), multiply by 80%, and round to the closest whole number. (This is the method that we previously used with a max of 6 scores. Decided that it wasnt a good enough method because bagging was still a definate possibility with only 4 scores being averaged out at any given time)

If the 3rd slot doesnt contain a score, it will just list the players cap at 0 for still establishing.

If anyone would like a copy of the Fort Lauderdale Excel Spreadsheet, just send me an email at handicaps@rvmco.com .

I would also be interested in seeing other methods in use, or an official PDGA comment for figuring out league handicaps.

If you're using 10 best out of 20, there's no reason to multiply by 0.8. USGA says that players will only beat their handicap 1 out of 4 rounds, just using best 10 of 20, without an additional 20% penalty. Most leagues don't have more than 12 rounds let alone 20 so you'll usually need to rely on fewer rounds to get a handicap even if it's just one round to get new players started. One anti-bagging technique is to put a clamp on how much higher a player's handicap can go from one week to the next, say no more than 2 or 3, even if that really horrible round being averaged in says it should jump by 6.

The USGA adjusts handicaps for different course ratings and doesn't just use a default par of 72 for the calculations. Using par 54 might work for one course with one setup being used most of the time. But if there's a bad weather evening or pins and tees gets mixed around, then the true course difficulty changes from week to week. The Disc Golf United league handicap system takes all this into account using the course SSA system calculations "under the hood" and provides an online system for League Directors and players to monitor league stats and their personal handicaps for all courses and rounds they play. Check it out at: www.discgolfunited.com (http://www.discgolfunited.com)

Good point, I should have been able to see that using the best 10 out of the last 20 scores shouldnt need to be penalized further by giving an 80 percent cap of those scores. The law of averages already says that a golfer is only going to be able to put a top 10 of 20 score in once every 2 rounds, and when you average the top 10 scores it would jump to 1 in 4 rounds that would beat the average cap.

Updated formula should read as:

=IF(N2>0,ROUND((AVERAGE(SMALL(D2:W2,{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 }))-54),0),IF(F2>0,ROUND(((SUM(D2:M2)-MAX(D2:M2)-MIN(D2:M2))/(COUNT(D2:M2)-2)-54)*0.8,0),0))