Still moaning about high handicappers? You are the real WHS villain
I was fumbling across Tw*tter the other day and my eye stumbled on another story about the World Handicap System.
The thing itself was innocuous enough, it was all the carping underneath that got the old red blood boiling.
People, it’s been like 18 months. Don’t we have anything else to moan about? (It seems not if the constant slew of stuff on here is anything to go by.)
I suppose, though, it’s largely coming from the same people who brought us Brexit and that’s been going on like a skipping record for six years now.
Anyroad, usually the opportunity to get involved in a good old fashioned pile on about the horrors of something that’s not infallible straight out of the blocks would be right up my alley.
But this time even the comments did my head in. I can take the cheat’s charter stuff as nature intended, but it’s the whine about high handicappers that is too much to take.
It’s been this way ever since it was announced you could have a mark of 54.
“They’ll win all the comps!”
“No point in entering now!”
“Might as well leave the clubs in the garage!”
Really? What a load of old cobblers. How many people sporting massively high numbers have you seen winning club competitions?
I’ll tell you how many it’s been for me. None. And I like to think I play a few events. The huge handicappers I’ve been around are hardly entering competitions. It’s because they can barely hit the ball.
What I have seen plenty of since WHS came into being, though, is an altogether different category of player completely dominating.
Ladies and gentlemen, enter your real villain – the mid-handicapper. Recognise yourself here? I’m talking, specifically, about those men between 14 and 20ish. (The comps I play in are men’s, don’t @ me.)
You’ve been having quite a time of it, haven’t you? Honestly, your house must look like a Pirate’s treasure cave – bits of gold and silver everywhere.
I can’t bring myself to look at a live leaderboard anymore, knowing that someone off 18 has shot 46 points and I’ve got to channel my inner Jordan Spieth just to wallow in the middle of the pack.
The average WHS index in England is 17.1 for men. You are the majority, you’re cleaning up, and yet you’re moaning on about anyone off bigger than 24 shooting a tidy round? There’s a word for that. Hypocrisy.
Listen, anyone can have a good day on the course. I don’t begrudge you that. But you’re like Covid. Every other week there’s another strain of you popping up and causing misery among the masses.
Get back in your boxes. You can console yourselves with all those lovely vouchers…
- Want more Angry Club Golfer rants? You can read them here
Is it those in the middle who are squeezing everyone in a comp, or has the Angry Club Golfer lost his mind (and not for the first time)? Let him know.
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Steve Carroll
A journalist for 25 years, Steve has been immersed in club golf for almost as long. A former club captain, he has passed the Level 3 Rules of Golf exam with distinction having attended the R&A's prestigious Tournament Administrators and Referees Seminar.
Steve has officiated at a host of high-profile tournaments, including Open Regional Qualifying, PGA Fourball Championship, English Men's Senior Amateur, and the North of England Amateur Championship. In 2023, he made his international debut as part of the team that refereed England vs Switzerland U16 girls.
A part of NCG's Top 100s panel, Steve has a particular love of links golf and is frantically trying to restore his single-figure handicap. He currently floats at around 11.
Steve plays at Close House, in Newcastle, and York GC, where he is a member of the club's matches and competitions committee and referees the annual 36-hole scratch York Rose Bowl.
Having studied history at Newcastle University, he became a journalist having passed his NTCJ exams at Darlington College of Technology.
What's in Steve's bag: TaylorMade Stealth 2 driver, 3-wood, and hybrids; TaylorMade Stealth 2 irons; TaylorMade Hi-Toe, Ping ChipR, Sik Putter.
