A History Of Golf Handicapping: Which Is The Best Ever System?

The handicap system in golf is what makes ours such a universally enjoyable sport. Elite golfers can play with and compete against relative novices thanks to the golf handicap.

Players of all standards can win club tournaments when the handicap system is being used. With the World Handicap System (WHS) now in operation, players from all over the globe should be able to compete against one another on a fair footing.

The WHS is the culmination of a centuries-long development of golf handicapping, as individuals, clubs and then governing bodies have sought to introduce, adapt and improve various systems to deliver the most equitable method of levelling the playing field.

Here we look at a brief history of golf handicapping and ponder on what system has been the best. Surely, it’s the current WHS? … Well, perhaps…

The beginnings

Some sort of golf handicapping must have been in place since the earliest days the sport was played. As wealthy Scots started to play matches against one another (almost certainly with money involved) from the mid 15^th century onwards, there would surely have been a method of giving and receiving strokes to ensure the matches were competitive.

That we can only speculate on. What we do know is the first written mention of the golf handicap comes from the diary of an Edinburgh University medical student called Thomas Kincaid.

In January of 1687 he wrote about games on Bruntsfield and Leith Links and the best way to give strokes to prevent an opponent gaining too much advantage. He wrote “At golf, whether it is better to give a man two holes of three, laying equal strokes, or to lay three strokes to his one and play equal for so much every hole.”

From 1782 we have a written record from the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers when Captain Elphinston challenged a Mr. Allan to a match. It was written that, “Captain Elphinston challenges Mr. Allan next Saturday best of three rounds, half a crown a hole, that he beats Mr. Allan with the Club against his throwing and gives him half one.”

“Half one” meant that Elphinston would give Allan one stroke every two holes. There was also “third one” a shot every three holes, “one more” a shot a hole, and “two more” two strokes a hole.

The word handicap didn’t become commonly used in golf until the late 19^th century and it’s thought its etymological origin was a pub game of the 17^th century called Hand in Cap, which involved traders bidding on the value of items, overseen by a referee. Really it was a type of betting so the word, shortened to handicap, was adopted in horse racing and latterly golf.

Handicap competitions

A handicap tournament was played at Westward Ho! or Royal North Devon in 1875 and by the early 1880s many clubs had started to use an average of a player's best three scores over the year to calculate a handicap for them.

In 1887 a letter was published suggesting a centralised handicap authority for England and Scotland. There were issues with courses of varying difficulty and a way to make handicaps portable though.

Members of Royal Wimbledon Golf Club Dr Laidlaw Purves and Henry Lamb played a key role in establishing a universal system together with Issette Pearson of the Ladies Golf Union. Their suggestions led to a universally used system of average of best three medal round scores over two years.

In the USA, the USGA's first handicap system was agreed at a meeting in 1911. They went further than the Brits had at that stage and used a more efficient method for rating courses.

The Brits took note of this "course rating" and by 1925 they were issuing a Standard Scratch Score to courses, just as a Course Rating was issued to American courses by the USGA.

Developing and improving

In both the USA and the UK & Ireland, the handicap systems based on Course Rating and Standard Scratch Scores for courses were developed and improved upon through the course of the 20^th century.

In the UK, by the end of the century, the system was an aggregate one. After a handicap had been assigned to a player (still based on three returned scores), the handicap would move against performance.

If the player’s net score (gross score minus handicap) beat the competition standard scratch (CSS) of the day, their handicap would be cut. If it did not beat CSS, and was not within a “buffer zone” of strokes above it, the player’s handicap would go up by 0.1 of a shot.

In the USA, a major milestone came in 1987 when the Slope Rating System became part of the USGA Handicap System. It meant that a player would receive a different number of handicap strokes at different courses depending on their relative difficulty.

The USGA system used an average of scores rather than the aggregate system that had developed in the UK. It looked at differentials between score and course rating and an average of the best differentials from a set number of most recent scores delivered the player’s Handicap Index.

Is WHS best?

The WHS uses, effectively, the same USGA handicapping system that has been in place since the introduction of the Slope Rating. WHS takes the best eight score differentials from a player’s most recent 20 returned scores and the average of those differentials gives the Handicap Index. That Handicap Index is then used to calculate Course Handicap at whichever venue the player is teeing it up.

That then is how the handicap system evolved over 300 plus years and how we have now reached the universal WHS which is really just a tweaked version of the USGA Handicap System. Is it the best?

It’s surely the best version of the average calculation method for assigning handicap that we have seen to this point. It has been improved and adapted to be universally applicable, easy to understand and to offer all golfers as equal a chance of enjoying success in competition play as the system allows.

But, in this author’s opinion, the best handicap system was the old British method that was scrapped in favour of WHS. It was far more stable and gave competitive golfers more to play for in stroke play medal rounds.

Not only was there the incentive to get a handicap cut for a well-played round but there was also the chance to produce a gritty fightback to make that old “buffer zone” and prevent the dreaded 0.1 going on to your handicap.

I fully understand why the governing bodies have unified handicapping and gone to a universal system across the globe but I for one miss the days of the CSS and the buffer zone.