From Big Brother to handicaps of 45...

FAR be it from me to moan but I think there's one in the offing! Actually, I've been on my best behaviour for ages, but all good things come to an end. Bizarrely, my musings began with Big Brother, and just how far things have fallen to produce its contestants.

Dumbing down is endemic, and the cancer has pervaded golf. It began with the handicap system, and giving ladies 45 handicaps.
It continued with the omnipresent cry that medals are too hard, so let's have Stablefords at every possible opportunity, and it furthered its cause by replacing strokeplay Open Days with team competitions.

But now it has gone one step too far with the introduction of full handicap difference in matchplay. Call me old fashioned, but I actually still believe in working to achieve something, rather than being given it on a plate. It's simple.

If you want to win more competitions, have some lessons, and then go and practise what you have learned. I don't ever need to disappear to a desert island to 'find myself,' I can just go to the practice ground ­ and hope to goodness I never have a heart attack out there because I wouldn't be found for weeks!

The main consideration over the last decade seems to have been how to give more and more shots to high handicappers at the expense of everyone else. At this rate, I shan't be at all surprised to see golf officials on street corners holding collecting tins for 'help the bronze division'!

I must make it clear here that I'm not attacking high handicappers themselves, just the idiotic policies which have been meted out to them ­and policies which are actually very patronising to the players themselves. They simply say, you might have a handicap, but we know you can't play to it, so have a few extra shots. To give category one players a paltry one
shot buffer zone, and category five players a whopping five shots, is to acknowledge that they can't play to their handicaps so it's alright to give them a helping hand. No it isn't.

There just isn't any incentive to play good golf any more. It's one rule for category one players, and another for everyone else, which simply creates bitterness and resentment. I simply want one set of rules applied equally to everyone. For example, last year, I missed the whole season because of a debilitating virus. Months after re-starting this year, I still couldn't play anywhere near my four handicap.

For every other player, it's a simple process whereby your handicap committee decides that it's fair enough to raise your handicap a couple of shots.

For category one players, however, you have to plead your circumstances to the county handicap adviser (which I did) and have your scores sent through by the handicap secretary (which she did) only to be told that the situation will be monitored for the next couple of months. Marvellous.

I get to play virtually the whole of this season off a handicap I can't play anywhere near to, and have the pleasure of giving more shots to people in matchplay than ever before. Matchplay and strokeplay are totally different, which is why three quarters difference for matchplay was always fair. High handicappers usually have three or four triple bogeys, equating to 12 shots for handicap, but only four holes in match play ­ hence the three quarters.

To prove the point, in our club championship last year, I had to give 22 shots to a person who had five nett birdies, meaning even Annika couldn't have won! Unofficially, I asked one of the most well respected and eminent figures in ladies' golf what she thought of full shot difference, and she said, "I think it is one of the worst decisions the county has ever made, and it is disastrous for women's golf!"

Where's the incentive for good players? They can't compete against high handicappers any more, gross prizes have all but disappeared from every competition, and the number of scratch tournaments halved overnight with the introduction of the new handicap system. Golf used to be a great game ­both fun and fair. Now it's neither.

It's also unique. In tennis or squash for example, the person who plays the best wins. Different skill levels can't compete against each other. Golf used to be marvellous since so many people with widely different abilities could compete against each other with an equal chance of winning. Don't keep moving the goal posts to stop that and shift all the power to the 15-25 handicappers.

This year, I knew I hadn't any chance of winning a single round ­ and so it turned out. Giving away 15 shots (instead of 11), I was very pleased with how I played, churning out par after par, to lose hole after hole as my opponent played five shots under her handicap and reeled off four par-nett-birdies in seven of the last eight holes.

Lest anybody thinks this is just sour grapes because I lost, it isn't. I'm the first to applaud anyone who plays better than me and deserves to win. It's merely a sad indictment of the way golf has gone now that I can no longer play on level terms in a game where I used to love competing.

It just makes it totally pointless entering anything. So, I'm faced with a stark choice. Either stop playing, or level the playing field once again by getting my handicap up to something nice and relaxing like eight. After all, if everyone else has suddenly been given three or four extra shots that they don't deserve, then why shouldn't I give myself undeserved
extra shots as well? It's simply redressing the balance and making it a fair game again as it used to be.

The only trouble is, I've just revealed my cunning plan, and the handicap secretary reads this magazine, so she will dock me now every time I start to go up. Rats!