Separating golf from other sports,
the handicap enjoys a milestone
tommy Bolt said it best. Most golf bets are won during the negotiation on the
first tee. So to all the
pencil-whipping golfers out
there—and you know who
you are—it is time to
celebrate the centennial of
the USGA’s adoption of the
handicap system.
It happened on Oct. 11, 1911,
the year of the first Indianapolis 500, back when Cy Young
wasn’t an award but a pitcher
who had just notched his 511th
and final victory. The handicap
system has become one of
golf’s great distinctions,
whereby participants of different skill—whether male or
female, young or old, and even
from separate tees—can
compete fairly and equitably.
In golf, a handicap is a
measure of a player’s potential. For some it is proof of
progress, for others of incompetence and the deterioration
of skill. It is a golfer’s photo I.D., allowing admittance to
local, regional and national competition.
The original concept of handicapping began with the
Scots. Historians have uncovered references dating as far
back as 1687. According to the USGA, the term derived from
a trading game, popular in pubs in the 17th and 18th centuries, known as “hand in cap.” Yet it was a group of women—
the Ladies Golf Union in Great Britain—who became the first
governing authority to establish a nationwide system.
In the U.S., Leighton Calkins is considered the father of
the USGA handicap system. He advocated the British
system of averaging a player’s best three scores, and in what
became the forerunner of course ratings, assigning each
course a par score based on the expected score of then-reigning U.S. Amateur champ Jerome Travers. Calkins
first tested his ideas at Plainfield CC in Edison, N.J., then on a
larger scale with the Metropolitan Golf Association,
beginning in 1905. The Massachusetts Golf Association
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adopted the formula, but
insisted bogey, not par, be the
scratch standard.
In October 1911, while the
U.S. Women’s Amateur was
being contested at Baltusrol GC
in Springfield, N.J., the
USGA executive committee
discussed establishing a
handicap system as a way to
determine eligibility for the
U.S. Amateur. According to
Dean Knuth, the USGA’s
senior director of handicapping from 1981 to 1997, a
contentious meeting ensued
between members of the
USGA executive committee
from the Metropolitan GA
and the lone committee rep
from the Massachusetts GA.
Ultimately they adopted a
modified version of
Calkins’ system.
In 1912 the USGA insti-
tuted the first national handicap list for use at its 324
member clubs, naming those golfers who were eligible to
enter the U.S. Amateur (6-handicap or better). “They had no
inkling some day millions of golfers would use a handicap to
enjoy the game and be able to play competitively with each
other,” Knuth says.
In its primitive days, handicapping was more art than
science. Improvements have been made, perhaps none more
significant than Knuth’s invention in the 1980s of the slope
system, a measure of how fast scores go up as handicaps go up,
which made handicaps portable from club to club.
A century later, a handicap still determines eligibility for
the U.S. Amateur ( 2. 4 or less). But its import has grown.
The USGA says 4. 5 million golfers have an official handicap. Today, there are nearly 19,000 golf clubs, representing
88 domestic golf associations and 24 international associations, that are licensed to use the USGA handicap system.
That’s reason enough for the USGA to return to Baltusrol
Oct. 27 and host a celebratory dinner to commemorate one
of the most significant moments in golf. n
