That came after \u201ccareful consideration and consultation, including feedback from counties, committees, club staff and volunteers\u201d.<\/p>\n
WHS chiefs at Woodhall Spa said they would use the next couple of years to further analyse Playing Handicap allowances, while looking at existing measures \u201cdesigned to improve competition equity\u201d.<\/p>\n
But their decision stirred plenty of you, and you have been writing to our various platforms to have your say. So what are some of your thoughts?<\/p>\n
![\"world](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/golfscorecard-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
What did you think of the Playing Handicaps decision?<\/p>\n
John nailed his colours to the mast from the very first sentence. He said: \u201cThe general consensus in Ireland is WHS has destroyed club golf and inter club competitions, it\u2019s unworkable and unfixable.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince it was introduced 5 years ago the initial WHS has been altered so many times that it can\u2019t really be called a WHS anymore as it is so different now to North America and countries all over the World.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is fundamentally flawed and makes a mockery of club golf \u2013 45\/46\/47+ pts winning competitions. Golfers with a 54 handicap only feature occasionally, the biggest problem is two years ago 11\/12\/13 handicappers are now playing off 21\/22\/23, and there are loads and loads of them. Some by choice, some due to the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a 9 handicapper, I have long given up on winning any competitions as I can\u2019t shoot 2 or 3 over for a chance of winning. 40 pts in my opinion was always a great winning score irrespective of your handicap. Every golfer on their day can score 40 pts. When 44+ points are winning it eliminates 95% of entries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know of a club matchplay championship where a 2-handicapper had to give 37 shots to his opponent, a total mockery of golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people talk about low handicappers not being able to win competitions I would say anyone below 14 has no chance unless due to WHS they used to be a very low handicapper.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mervyn added: \u201cMy local club reduced the handicap allowance to 85% this year and most competitions were won by low handicappers. The other noticeable thing was that your handicap would be reduced with a score of 31 or 32 points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kevin, meanwhile, is thinking about taking drastic action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe English Golf Union are playing into the hands of the bandits yet again (everything still based on the Stableford system),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t be playing in any more competitions until they change the rules and I will now have to consider if\u00a0it\u2019s worth joining my club for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will cost the club in membership fees as my regular fourball were thinking of stopping playing in competitions anyway and visiting other courses in our area, playing midweek golf only and no competitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phil asked why we had a Playing Handicap in the first place. He wrote: \u201cWhy do we still adjust the Course Handicap by 95% or 90% on singles competition to give a Playing Handicap when the Course Handicap is calculated using the WHS adjusted by slope\/113 and further adjusted by Course Rating \u2013 par? Utter madness. In all singles comps leave it at the Course Handicap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sean contrasted the winning points scores in competitions at his club. \u201cI have noticed that nearly all scratch competitions are won in and around 36 to 38 points, but handicap comps are about 42 to 46. Surely that shows low handicappers have virtually no chance in club comps.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, finally, Les said the decision to postpone was \u201ca shame\u201d. He explained: \u201cWe had a Board competition where a player did not win, even though they equalled the course record, because someone playing off 22 had a good day.<\/p>\n
\u201cLow handicappers cannot compete with this and being able to adjust the Playing Handicap was a way that we could make it a bit fairer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may be that we have to look at reintroducing the maximum handicap into Board Competitions, which I think is a negative step as [it] will exclude a number of players from playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now have your say<\/p>\n
What do you make of England Golf\u2019s decision to postpone a change to Playing Handicaps? Let me know by leaving a comment, email me at\u00a0s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com<\/a>, or get in touch on\u00a0X<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England Golf\u2019s announcement that they would postpone making any decision on handicap allowances before 2028 awoke plenty of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-306540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}