What Do People Mean When They Refer To Golf's 'Governing Bodies'?

Golf has a wide range of bodies that administer aspects of the game. But there are only two governing bodies that determine and define what golf is and how it is played.

These bodies are the R&A and the United States Golf Association. The USGA has jurisdiction in the United States and Mexico; the R&A for everywhere else. These two bodies work together to draw up a single agreed code for the Rules of Golf, equipment standards and the Rules of Amateur Status.

In 2020, these two bodies also introduced the World Handicapping System, to bring in a single handicapping system to replace the six different systems in existence globally at the time.

Golf in its early years was played to a variety of local rules, and there was no single agreed method of playing the game. The size of the hole, for example, could vary quite significantly from course to course.

In Scotland in 1754, the Society of St Andrews Golfers was founded. When King William IV became its Patron in 1834, it changed its name to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. Colloquially the club became known as The R&A.

This society had taken on the role of determining a single set of rules for the game, necessary for inter-club and national competitions. It took on the organisation and administration of the Open Championship, a tournament designed to determine The Champion Golfer of The Year.

Birth of the USGA

In 1894 in the United States, two clubs, Saint Andrews Golf Club in New York and Newport Country Club in Rhode Island, had held tournaments and both clubs had declared the winner of their competition as the national amateur golf champion.

Later that year those two clubs, together with The Country Club in Brookline, Chicago Golf Club and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, formed a national governing body which would administer a competition to crown the national champion and also set the rules by which golf would be played in the United States.

This body, originally called the Amateur Golf Association of the United States, was founded in December 1894. It later changed its name to the United States Golf Association.

The following year it organised the first US Amateur Championship and the first US Open, both held at Newport Country Club.

Rules first agreed internationally

In 1952, the USGA and the R&A got together to issue a single, unified set of golf rules. Jointly, they have continued to do this with revisions to these rules published every four years.

In 2004, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews formed a separate company, known as the R&A, which was the sole owner of three subsidiary companies: R&A Rules Limited, R&A Championships Limited, and R&A Group Services Limited.

This new R&A group took on responsibility for governance of the game and the administering of the R&A’s golf tournaments, with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews itself becoming simply a private members' club.