Sandbagger

A golfer who deliberately maintains a higher handicap than their actual playing ability warrants, typically to gain unfair advantage in handicap-based competitions. Sandbagging undermines the integrity of handicap systems and competitive equity that handicaps are designed to provide. This practice can involve posting artificially high scores, playing poorly in casual rounds, or other methods to inflate handicap indexes. Golf associations and tournament committees work to identify and prevent sandbagging through score monitoring, handicap reviews, and penalties for players found to be manipulating their handicaps unfairly.