Golf's Biggest Handicap

Golf is one of the few sports in which players of widely differing abilities can compete fairly with each other, by dint of a handicapping system. That is the theory. For the system to work fairly, a player's handicap should reflect his best game. From my experience of organizing competitions five days each week, it is apparent that many players feel that their handicap should reflect their worst game and that a score of 36 stableford points represents a poor round of golf. Another hindrance to the proper allocation of handicaps is peculiar to Andalucia, in that the FGA (Federacíon Andaluza de Golf) will only adjust handicaps according to scores submitted in their own competitions. As a result, we have the ridiculous situation where a member of the FGA can have an official handicap of 18, while playing regularly in some society or other off a handicap as low as 6. This is because most well run golf societies will regularly adjust members' handicaps under their own rules, thus reflecting a player's true ability. However, when the lucrative summer competitions come around under the FGA banner, the scoring becomes ludicrous, as winning scores of 45 points or more are common. Now a score of 45 stableford points is the equivalent of 9 strokes better than the player's handicap, so it is quite obvious that players whose handicaps genuinely reflect their ability have no chance of winning. The situation arises because of the commercial nature of golf locally, where green fees provide far more revenue than members' annual subscriptions and the handicap process is regarded as unjustified waste of labour.

In fact, honest golfers who know that their game has improved to the point where they regularly perform at a higher level than indicated by their handicap, can request that their golf federation reduce their handicap. This does not happen often. Alternatively, a player's handicap can be reduced, based on general performance, based on score cards produced in unofficial events, provided these cards are presented to the relevant golf federation. Perhaps if some of the golf societies prevalent on the coast were to forward winning scores to the FGA, it may feel obliged to adjust handicaps accordingly, if only to encourage genuine golfers to enter their competitions.