News

Monday 23rd November 2015

The Council of National Golf Unions Limited (CONGU) today announced that the Unified Handicapping System has been revised. Changes will take effect on 1 January 2016, with an implementation date for clubs of 1 March 2016.

The new CONGU manual is in the process of being published and is the culmination of a four-year review cycle with the aim of assisting club members to have handicaps which truly reflect their playing ability.

• Dates – The handicap year will now follow the calendar year, 1 January to 31 December, and a player’s handicap will be based on scores returned within that period.
• Four Ball Better Ball Handicap Allowance: In both stroke play and match play the back marker * now concedes strokes to the other 3 players based on 90% of the difference between the full handicaps rather than 75% (3/4) as at present.
• Reinstatement of Handicap Status: The reinstatement of a competition status handicap requires a player to submit 3 qualifying scores (which could be 18 hole competitions,9 hole competitions or Supplementary Scores both home and/or away).
• Continuous Handicap Review: To assist with this process there will now be a computer generated report which highlights those players with 7 consecutive 0.1 increases. Handicap Committees are now recommended to review the performance of such players and to give due consideration to applying a handicap ibcrease where applicable or required.
• Exact Handicaps: In Ireland lowest exact handicap is now restricted to 1.0 stroke increase in a calendar year.

* Back marker: player with the lowest handicap of the group.