'If You’re Looking For Perfection, I’m Afraid You’re Not Going To Find It' – Why We Should Be Thankful For The World Handicap System

I may not agree 100% with everything about the World Handicap System (WHS), or indeed any handicap system. You may not, either. But given the wildly fluctuating degrees of inconsistency among club golfers that any golf handicap system is asked to legislate for, I think it is doing a pretty good job overall.

It will probably do an even better job when some of the WHS revisions for 2024 kick in. Among those are an alteration to the Course Handicap calculation (in the UK&I) that looks set to potentially benefit lower handicappers more by now including the Course Rating in the equation, and a promise that Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC) adjustments will be triggered more frequently, something that has been sadly lacking to date.

Some people get quite hot under the collar when it comes to handicapping, don’t they? And it seems many of us have bugbears with WHS just as we did with the old SSS/CSS scheme. Perhaps it was ever thus and we are all guilty of having overly ambitious ideas about an equalising system that exists out of necessity, or at least desire not to see the same faces winning every week.

That’s what would happen without a handicap scheme but trying to find a suitable system to adequately deal with the many variables in the mix is an inherently complex and thankless task. They could, if they so wished, lean towards extremes – either a handicap based on your best ever score as that’s what you’re ultimately capable of, which would leave most of us competitive once every three years; or, do away with handicaps altogether. May the best man or woman win, and if you really want to win you’ll just have to get better. Both, of course, are non-options as that would lead to a decline in interest and numbers at club golf level, neither of which the game needs.

No, the beauty of our sport is that handicaps do exist, allowing the better player’s advantage to be diluted sufficiently such that in any given week, any one of us could, in theory, win. Okay, when you factor in wild inconsistency, rapid improvements, returns to the game after injury and so on, no system can ever be perfect. But I would say I’ve been in contention about the right number of times in handicap competitions since the UK&I adopted WHS.

Personally, I don’t have many issues with WHS. It promotes handicaps closer to the better end of one’s ability than the average and it can respond more quickly to any prolonged loss or discovery of form than the previous system. I think I also quite like the jeopardy of knowing exactly what you’ve got to do when you tee it up to prevent an increase, and I also like those rounds when you’re playing free from any real fear or worry as the only way your handicap can go that day is down because of where your current counting scores fall. Those days when, if you play badly, it won’t make any difference at all… not immediately at least, although it may come back to haunt you if you take your eye off the ball for too long and then suddenly realise there’s nothing half-decent in the system to fall back on when your best rounds drop off.

Any system can be manipulated and abused, of course, and that’s probably more true of WHS than previous systems as many golfers are now putting in way more cards outside of competition rounds than before. Handicap protection and manipulation are always possible for those so inclined, but one of the problems is that the symptoms of handicap protection and choking can look very similar, making a genuine diagnosis difficult.

For example, last year I endured a series of rounds where I was doing quite nicely with a few holes to play, only to throw it all away - quite spectacularly at times! A casual observer might have looked at the evidence and thought, “Aha, handicap protection!” But nothing could have been further from the truth. I had been trying my hardest on every shot – probably too hard – but had simply forgotten how to close out a round! I have absolutely zero interest in my handicap going up.

Yes, there are elements of WHS that are, or appear to be, flawed, but if you’re looking for a 100% foolproof and perfect handicap system, I’m afraid you’re simply not going to find it. Maybe we should all be just a little more thankful that a system even exists to allow those blessed with limited ability to compete with those blessed with considerably more, as in many walks of life such an equalising system would be seriously frowned on.