Sandbagging is not defined by people who win their divisions. A lot of people win without being sandbaggers. Sandbagging is intentionally throwing shots or missing putts so you can keep your rating lower to stay in a lower division. Like if you had a 5 stroke lead over the next 3 guys and because you are playing on the same card and when you extend your lead to 10 strokes on the second round you then know you can botch a couple upshots or miss a couple 10' putts . . . that is sandbaggins and I highly doubt that happens often. People playing in a division they are rated is not sandbagging, it is within the rules and part of the game. However, if a guy took a year off of playing pdga tourneys and while he is rated 899, he knows from playing casual rounds or league rounds his game is much much much better than 899 more like 935 rated or so, and he still chooses to play recreational. That is not sandbagging it is just a guy out for the money and not someone who cares about the integrity of the game.
I personally moved up to Intermediate when I won my first rec tourney and I was rated 871 at the time, but I still moved up, because I knew my game was much better than most of the Rec field in the tourneys I was entering. I have since darn near cashed in every intermediate division tourney and my rating had gotten as high as 915 and slid back to 907 and I have only missed cashing in 2 events I think and one was due to injury. That is what the integrity of the game and divisions is supposed to be about but more often than not people stay as low as they can t win as much as they can. Its sad if you ask me but it is not sandbagging!
