Old Handicaps - How Did They Work?

[BoadieBroadus]

I'm interested in getting a better picture of how handicaps used to work back in the days before +0.1 and CSS and SSS and the like. I hear mutterings of how it used to be different, but was it just down to the handicap committee at a club or was there a standardised method of calculating them?

My mum mentioned that at one point that they just took the 3 best scores of a player over a season and took the average. Was that common or would all clubs have had a different approach?

My grandfather, I believe, played off 1 back in his day with wooden shafts etc. Given that i would need to shoot rounds of 4 under par in the next 30 comps to achieve that (or something thereabouts), I find it difficult to imagine how that could be achieved. Other than the England international amateur at the club, no one at our club would be anywhere close to that.

Were handicaps generally lower in the old days? When did the current CONGU system come into place? Often we hear the stat that average handicaps have not changed in 40 years of technical advances - does the change in the handicapping system itself account for this?

 

[Ethan]

How old is old?

In the 80s, you got a handicap based on 3 cards, somewhat similar to now although probably with greater discretion on the part of the handicap secretary, then handicaps tended to be lowered in whole numbers. I remember getting my first senior handicap, aged 18 of 12. Some time later, I won a comp where I had a score of 4 or 5 below the standard scratch, and my handicap was reduced by 3. At the end of the season, you could get a shot back if you had played rubbish all year.

I thiink this statement about average handicaps needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. It may be true that the average handicap is not lower, but the population from whom the average is derived is probably different and broader now. In the past, there were club members without handicaps who just played social golf. The handicaps were mostly for people who played comps regularly. Now, everyone had a handicap and the average includes people who play very little. I suspect if you looked at a like for like comparison, say regular competition participants, the average handicap for the subset would have come down.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

How old is old?

In the 80s, you got a handicap based on 3 cards, somewhat similar to now although probably with greater discretion on the part of the handicap secretary, then handicaps tended to be lowered in whole numbers. I remember getting my first senior handicap, aged 18 of 12. Some time later, I won a comp where I had a score of 4 or 5 below the standard scratch, and my handicap was reduced by 3. At the end of the season, you could get a shot back if you had played rubbish all year.

I thiink this statement about average handicaps needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. It may be true that the average handicap is not lower, but the population from whom the average is derived is probably different and broader now. In the past, there were club members without handicaps who just played social golf. The handicaps were mostly for people who played comps regularly. Now, everyone had a handicap and the average includes people who play very little. I suspect if you looked at a like for like comparison, say regular competition participants, the average handicap for the subset would have come down.

Going back further than this to the days of Old Tom Morris, it was the green keepers responsibility to assign handicaps to members, allocate shots in matches etc etc.

I did hear that at some point in the past, possibly circa 1970, you could only be allocated a scratch or plus handicap by the golf union who also had the right to withdraw it, but I don't know much about that, I'm sure someone will.

 

[MetalMickie]

Far more discretion and use of "General Play" in the '70s. For example I was cut two shots in 1976 purely on the strength of playing rather well in a friendly 4BBB match where one of the opposition was the Club President.

Otherwise, as Ethan says, cuts were full shots only and based on performance against SS (there was no CSS). Increases were only made once a year in the Annual Review.

To this day we still have a number of older golfers with "vanity" handicaps reflecting how they played once.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

In the 50/60s the handicap committee would rule the roost.
They would cut folk who did well in competitions even matchplay and put up folk who were out of form, generally speaking it worked well. The County were in charge of really low handicap players. Few county players were scratch a + handicap was very rare.

If my memory stands up I think that in the 1970's Cat1 players were under the County and had to return four scores under par [nett] a year to retain their handicap. One of the scores had to be an away card. I remember one year playing off 2 and having umpteen scores under par on my home course and missing a 6 footer on the 18th at an Open meeting to get me to 1 handicap. End of the year I went up to 3.
For all other categories Handicap committee still had all the power to cut or increase.

 

[Ethan]

When I did my 3 cards to get a senior handicap, I was marking the first one with a guy who had been a 15 or 16 handicapper for ever.

On the first hole for the first card, a par 5, I hit a driver, 3 wood to 12 feet and holed the putt. The 15 turned to me and said 'Jesus, son what sort of [censored] handicap are you looking for?'. Needless to say it didn't last.

 

[Hobbit]

It was full shot cuts, and if you had a good day out the cut would be brutal. Getting shots back was dependant on how often the committee did its reviews. Getting cuts for general play, and pairs comps, could be just as brutal if you had been showing a bit of form for awhile.

My first h'cap was 18 and a week later, after a decent but not spectacular result, it was 14. A year later, once I'd got used to 14, it tumbled again through the summer on the back of some decent form. I can vaguely remember there was a couple of general play cuts and some on the back of being in the frame - down to 10.

Once you were on the radar, and had a reputation for being able to hit the ball well, you could suffer some really sharp cuts.

 

[pbrown7582]

Upset the handicap sec and you were in for a severe cut as there was a lot of discretion to the job.
Also you could go out with your mates have a superb round and put the card in for a general play cut,

 

[Doh]

Ha, Ha those were the days when the Handicap Sec really was called Slasher.