When you get a lot of emails about the World Handicap System – and I get a lot – you start to see patterns. There are aspects of the calculator that rile some golfers more than others.
General play rounds, for example, are far from popular with those that have beef with WHS. But there is another complaint that comes up time and again.
It’s handicaps of a certain size winning club competitions. We’re talking really anything 28 and above.
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Certainly when I was first taking the game seriously, I couldn’t enter some outside competitions until I’d got down to 18. This wasn’t back in a time of pea soupers, and black and white TV, either. It was well into this century.
There were limits, standards, and levels. Those who are getting in touch complaining about ’45 handicappers’ picking up pots feel these have been swept away in an acceptance of mediocrity.
If this is an issue, perhaps you should start asking some awkward questions. It’s become too easy for some clubs to tell their members the World Handicap System is the villain, when they have many powers to address any concerns.
Are clubs using their powers to enforce handicap limits in competitions?
If very high handicappers dominating competitions are a real issue at a club, and not just a recycled myth, my first reaction is normally: “Why did the committee allow them to enter in the first place?”
We’re five years into WHS now but this obviously bears repeating. Your club can set whatever handicap limits they want within their terms of competition. They have been able to do so since the very first day of WHS in November 2020.
If they don’t want loads of players with 30/40/50 handicaps winning board competitions, don’t let them enter. Have another Stableford on the same day. It’s not that difficult to run two competitions.
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But sometimes people in clubs avoid making such decisions, principally I feel because they don’t want to be unpopular. Who wants to stand in the bar and be harangued?
If they say, ‘the handicap limit is 18′ – which is a number I also see banded about by people on social media – they will have loads of members really cross with them because they can’t enter. Remember, the average handicap index in England is 17 for men and 28 for women.
The last thing they want is to be a lightning rod. But being on a committee can mean taking tough, and sometimes unpopular, decisions. There is nothing to stop a golf club having handicap limits. There is nothing to stop competitions having divisions.
There is nothing to stop a club having a Cup and a Plate for a board competition – one up to 28 handicap, for instance, and one for everyone above. There is nothing to stop them having a gross prize as well as a net.
There is nothing to stop any of this. And certainly not the World Handicap System. So club committees need to use the powers they’ve got. They need to stop using the WHS as a shield.
Now have your say on the World Handicap Systems
What do you think? Is this view unfair, or do clubs need to do more on World Handicap System terms of competition. Let me know in the comments, email me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com, or get in touch on X.
