I had a little spare time this morning, so I looked at the data for shooters who registered at least 1000 handicap targets in 2008. Again we will look at the median average by yardage, i.e. half of those shooters had a better average, half had worse. We'll also list the median number of targets registered, i.e. half registered more, half fewer.
27 yards, 1917 shooters, 89.5% median average, 2600 median targets;
26.5 yards, 302 shooters, 87.8% median average, 2200 median targets;
26 yards, 637 shooters, 87.2% median average, 2200 median targets;
25.5 yards, 390shooters, 87.5% median average, 1900 median targets;
25 yards, 729 shooters, 86.3% median average, 2000 median targets;
24.5 yards, 375 shooters, 87.6% median average, 1850 median targets;
24 yards, 607 shooters, 86.6% median average, 1800 median targets;
23.5 yards, 395 shooters, 87.2% median average, 1800 median targets;
23 yards, 537 shooters, 87.2% median average, 1700 median targets;
22.5 yards, 449 shooters, 87.6% median average, 1800 median targets;
22 yards, 557 shooters, 87.3% median average, 1700 median targets;
21.5 yards, 421 shooters, 87.6% median average, 1600 median targets;
21 yards, 503 shooters, 86.8% median average, 1600 median targets;
20.5 yards, 392 shooters, 86.6% median average, 1500 median targets;
20 yards, 928 shooters, 84.4% median average, 1400 median targets;
19.5 yards, 90 shooters, 86.2% median average, 1550 median targets;
19 yards, 458 shooters, 82.1% median average, 1500 median targets;
18.5 yards, 3 shooters, 82.1% median average, 3800 median targets;
18 yards, 20 shooters, 83.5% median average, 2500 median targets.
Draw your own conclusions. One suggested "fix" for the "handicap problem" often suggested is to increase the maximum yardage, say to 30 yards. Looking at this data, and correlating with the singles averages, I suspect that what also may be needed is to decrease the minimum handicap yardage to 16 yards.