Handicap Secretary's Report

Communication to all Members from Malcolm Berryman, SWGC Handicap Secretary

Effect of Handicapping Changes with effect from 1st January 2018.

As you will have seen from various announcements that have come out from England Golf and my report to the Annual General Meeting, a number of changes are being made to the Handicapping System with effect from January 1, 2018. The aim behind these changes is to make golf more inclusive than it currently is (hence the desire to allow higher handicaps than currently) and to ease in changes that will be part of the World Handicap System in 2020.

Whilst these changes will have little or no impact on the large majority of our existing members, it will mean some change especially for new members. The purpose of this note is to explain the changes and the decisions that the General Committee have reached in response to those changes.

1. Retirement of Club & Disability Handicaps – The facility has always existed for Clubs to allot handicaps greater than 28 (men), 36 (ladies) (hereafter expressed as 28/36) either out of choice (Club) or for reasons of disability. SWGC has not taken advantage of these facilities. However it has been concluded by the Golfing authorities that these exemptions have had a low impact and have been removed and replaced by a new Category 5 for Men and Category 6 for both Men and Women, providing for a maximum handicap of 54.0 for all golfers. Players will be able to maintain a Competition Handicap in all six categories. Upward adjustment for all categories will remain at 0.1 and downward adjustments for Net Differentials below Buffer Zones will be 0.5 for Category 5 and 0.6 for Category 6.

2. Handicap Committee Review - After 1st January 2018 Handicap Committees can increase handicaps above the current limits of 28.0 and 36.0, and they will also increase above those limits automatically as a result of above Buffer Zone returns in Qualifying Competitions and Supplementary Score submissions.

These two changes are more radical than they sound as it removes the discretion that we, as a Club have to limit handicaps across the whole membership. Effectively both new and existing members will have the possibility of having handicaps above 28/36. Both will be able to go up to 54. We will however continue to be able to restrict handicaps in individual competitions if we so wish.

The General Committee (and Mens, Ladies and Seniors sections) have decided that, with effect from January 1, 2018. whilst they will allow members who are handicapped above the current maxima of 28/36 to do the normal Stablefords and Medals and play off their full handicap, all our Major and Board competitions (including Knock Outs) will have a restriction requiring a maximum playing handicap of 28/36, unless they have a current maximum that is lower (where that lower handicap limit will apply). If a player with a handicap greater than the competition maximum handicap enters that competition, he/she will be restricted to the competition’s maximum handicap.

We believe that these restrictions for our Board and Major competitions (including knock-outs) are appropriate as it is usually the case that these competitions have pre-booked tee slots and large fields and Speed of Play is an important consideration in such events.

3. Supplementary Scores – Relaxation of the rules to allow an unlimited number of score submissions per year and removal of the restriction of one per week. However, the restriction on Category 1 players will remain in place.

I believe that this is self-explanatory and should not be a real issue for us as nobody gets near the maximum anyway.

4. Mixed Tee Competitions – There will be a single CSS Adjustment Calculation on any particular day thus preventing different competitions (and ladies in a Club competition) held on the same day ending up with perhaps very different CSS adjustments. Having a single CSS adjustment for two or more competitions will provide a more equitable value when one of the competitions has a very low number of players. To overcome the technical IT implementation issues, the approach agreed will be to enter all scores into a single competition (and so a single CSS Adjustment Factor is calculated) with a facility within the software to allow the results to be separated for each group of competitors.

This will affect our Club competitions and will mean that if, say, there are only a few ladies in a Club competition; they will not have their own separate CSS adjustment based on their own scores.

5. Definitions – Confirmation that cards submitted for Initial Handicap Allocation are included in the definition of Qualifying Scores for handicap purposes. Accordingly a player whose handicap is allocated on the basis of such submitted scores under Clause 16 will automatically be allocated a Competition Handicap status.

SWGC already do this anyway.

6. 9 Hole Competitions – Introduce the option of 9-Hole Medal Competitions and 9-Hole Open Competitions. For handicap purposes, the 9-Hole Medal scores will be converted to Stableford and will appear as Stableford on the players’ handicap record.

Our ladies and seniors sections already have 9 hole competitions anyway but these can be extended and may be considered for the +28s and +36s if we find we have a larger number of them.

7. Handicap Adjustments – Confirmation that the adherence to Appendix M (Guidelines for Handicap Reviews) is mandatory, not optional.

Here we regard Annual Reviews (and continuous review) as mandatory anyway. In particular, please note that this year’s Annual review is required to take place after January 1, 2018 and so will reflect the changes explained above. Our Handicap Committee meets on January 8th, 2018.

Decisions of the General Committee and Section Committees

As stated above, the General Committee (and Mens, ladies and Seniors sections) have decided that, with effect from January 1, 2018, whilst they will allow members who are handicapped above the current maxima of 28/36 to do the normal Stablefords and Medals and play off their full handicap, all our Major and Board competitions (including Knock Outs) will have a restriction requiring a maximum playing handicap of 28/36, unless they have a current maximum that is lower (where that lower handicap limit will apply). If a player with a handicap greater than the competition maximum handicap enters that competition, he/she will be restricted to the competition’s maximum handicap.

Additionally the General Committee will keep a watching brief over the results of competitions for the first six months of the year to see whether any issues are emerging. We will also review these decisions should Crown/SWGC decide to pursue a marketing strategy aimed at recruiting new members who’s handicaps would fall out of the current 28/36 limits.