Handicapped handicaps

Although I do not profess to know exactly how the current SAGA handicapping system works I do know that it does not work.

I have not come across single fellow golfer who likes or approves of the double handicap system that is presently in operation.

Apart from the unnecessary complication of having different handicaps in operation for different forms of competition – sometimes in the same round when there are individual as well as better ball competitions – it contains an inherent proclivity to be abused.

I have come across instances of fellow competitors, whose integrity is beyond question, unintentionally playing off the higher handicap and club managers tell me there is a high incidence of this happening somewhat more deliberately.

Handicapping, one of the beauties of this game we all love (to hate?), is the great equalizer among golfers of differing abilities and must meet three main requirements in that it must be simple to operate and understand and that it must be fair and dynamic.

The nature of the game with its varying playing and weather conditions makes handicapping a relatively inexact operation. We all know that an “inland” handicap tends to be lower than a “coastal” one – mostly caused by the wind – and concede that an 80 scored over The Links is a somewhat better score than an 80 carded at, say, the Wanderers.

However if the same principles are sensibly and universally applied a high degree of uniformity can be achieved.

And, from discussions with kindred hackers, there was not much wrong with the old system in which your handicap was 80% of the average of the 10 best rounds of your last 20. Ranged against a standard scratch index (which would result in Gardener Ross off the back tees being , say,76 and Parkview off the back being, say, 71 and so on based on length and prevailing conditions) you arrive by a system that fairly and reasonably accurately provides an indication of the skill level of a player.

Most golfers instinctively know if they are taking an unfair advantage but you will always get those who will be out to bend the rules – and goodness knows the possibilities of that taking place in golf are endless.

Much of the nefarious stuff could be eliminated by committees instituting compulsory sessions for all new members on etiquette and the game’s intrinsic code of honour. We have all come across transgressors (and I’m not talking about the serial offenders who are quickly found out and ostracised) and rather than cast a blind eye have a duty to point out the correct way – whether that be marking a card properly or how to put a ball back into play after having lost one.

It’s a complex business to which the SA Golf Association have given a lot of thought and time but if there’s one thing the governing body need to change it’s the inarguable fact that most golfers want a return to a system where you have only one handicap.