Good news, there has been no changes to the handicap rules this year knowing that the new modernized Rules of Golf would take a while to settle in.

There was a lot to learn, but with the style of the new rule books and lots of information available from England Golf and the R&A, everyone seemed to have got to grips with them quite quickly.

The new WORLD HANDICAP SYSTEM (WHS) start date for Great Britain and Northern Ireland has now been confirmed as 2nd November 2020.

Other areas will implement the system before that date. January will see Argentina, Australia, Canada, South Africa and the U.S.A. using it, with Portugal following on in the summer.

 The England Golf Education Workshop for the WHS will be on 18th February 2020 at Royal Norwich, all clubs are encouraged to send three people. Booking will be online at the England Golf website englandgolf.org (https://www.englandgolf.org/handicaps-rules/whs-2020/whs-club-workshops/) These will be presented by myself and Kevin Joy (Norfolk County Union Handicap Advisor) with England Golf’s East Region Adviser, Janice Hazledine to assist.

 Preparation for the WHS should already be underway at Club Level.
Administrators should check the following:-

• Educational Workshop: is someone from your club booked in?

• Clubs should complete their handicap database cleansing. This is to remove non-members from the system and to remove any “Pending” statuses, and to ensure all playing members have one, and only one, active CDH number.

To assist with this, documents can be downloaded from the EG website:

CDH User Guide – guidance for using the CDH

CDH Cleansing - information on cleansing of Handicap Database

• Ensure all handicap reviews are completed prior to 1st March 2020.

• Encourage and promote the returning and recording of all scores (qualifying competitions and non qualifying) plus supplementary scores.

• Ensure rules on scorecards have been reviewed and space available to record slope and rating values.

• Check if your club has reviewed all their terms of competition, communicating changes to members.

• Be sure your club has a handicap committee – a minimum of three people is required who will support WHS compliance at club level.

For further information you can visit websites:

Englandgolf.org
randa.org
WHS.com

Sue Allen your Norfolk Handicap Adviser