YankeeJim: You can tell guys that sand bag by looking at their stats. 31 32 31 72 32 30 75 is something you might see. That person is shooting big 18 hole scores to keep the average up there but shoots lights out in the 9ers, which might be tournaments.
I would say the good scores would have to be money tournaments or matchplays and more high scores in non-money games too to be a suspect. Too few won't have any effect (they'll be ignored by the stats) and getting good results for non-money games won't help a sandbagger's cause.
Also, it doesn't seem to me that an 18-hole score counts more towards your average than a 9-hole so why would they waste time shooting poor rounds on them when poor 9-hole rounds would do just as well?
And also, people do try harder and concentrate more on money tournaments so I'm sure everyone will have most of their best scores on those and all of their worst scores on non-tournament rounds and I'm sure a variation of 15 from best to worst is not uncommon.
So, a more justified suspicion would be:
Tour Pro, Average Score 70, History:
- not a money tournament - 37
- not a money tournament - 38
- money tournament - 32
- not a money tournament - 40
- money tournament - 33
- money tournament - 31
- not a money tournament - 36
- not a money tournament - 39
- money tournament - 30
- etc