The Winter 2023 edition of Golf Management features interviews with José Cardoso Botelho at Terras da Comporta; Ed Chapman at Royal Auckland & Grange; Alfonso Castiñeira at Las Colinas Golf & Country Club; Stephen Hubner at Jumeirah Golf Estates; and Tom Widley at Holywood Golf Club.
Plus, a destination report from El Saler, and on the front cover… Bluewater on Course To Eradicate Plastic Bottles At Home Of Golf.
Picture the scene: there I am enjoying the sun, stunning scenery, and wonderful golf courses of Costa Navarino, when I felt something strange. It was guilt. I felt guilty for something that was not my fault. I realised I was getting more shots on the course than my European contemporaries.
It was a discrepancy within the World Handicap System (WHS), which I had confirmed to me after some email exchanges with The R&A, the CEO of How Many Strokes, Tonny Gottlieb, and the GM at my home club back in the UK, Felixstowe Ferry.
If this all sounds a little familiar then you’re clearly a regular reader, as my concerns were included in an article in our spring 2023 edition penned by Christopher Stratford. The cause of the discrepancy, which you are probably aware of, by now, was CONGU nations using a different formula to calculate the slope index on a course than that used by the rest of the world, essentially Course Rating Minus Par.
I understand, that this is to be addressed among the significant changes to the WHS for the new season; specifically, CONGU nations will adopt the same slope rating as the rest of the world, meaning most golfers in those nations will lose shots, and slope-index boards will all need to be recalculated and re-printed. And that’s why a digital solution such as How Many Strokes is such a great investment, but I digress.
Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the changes and the readjustment of slope indexes to fall in line with the rest of the world, but I remain convinced there remains a fundamental flaw in the WHS, which is the removal of the ‘buffer’ zone…
I’m here, writing this, so let’s take me as an example. My WHS is currently 11.7 – and I’ve worked really hard to get my handicap down to that level over the summer – and I want it to stay down. Later this week, weather permitting, I will play in a Stableford competition at Felixstowe Ferry, yet, based on eight out of the last 20 rounds, I know that the next time I play, I will have one of my best rounds dropping from the calculation, meaning I know, even before I tee-off, that I need to play out of my skin to merely stand a hope of retaining the same WHS.
And with the wind from the North Sea howling across the golf course at this time of year, standing still, yet alone shooting anything close to par at Felixtsowe Ferry is an achievement in itself. So, the chances are, that even if I scored 40 points, my WHS would still go up, leaving me yearning for the days when if you shot 36 points – or within your ‘buffer’ – your handicap remained the same.
I’m sure I can’t be alone in wishing that if one plays to one’s handicap, that handicap should remain unchanged. Not reintroducing this aspect in the amendments is, in my humble opinion, a mistake. Or is it just me?
The idea of a business magazine for the golf industry, first came to founder – and publisher – Michael Lenihan when he visited La Manga Club in 1996. With a publishing background, and having just sold the rights to Football Management – a B2B magazine he launched in 1993 – he stumbled across a copy of Golf Enterprise Europe. And the rest, as they say, is history.
A year later, to coincide with the Ryder Cup at Valderrama in September 1997, the first edition of Golf Management Europe was published, and in 2020 – to reflect the growing global reach of the magazine – the word ’Europe’ was removed from the title.
An all too often frustrated golfer, Michael has interviewed some of the best operators in world golf, and has had the privilege to visit, and play, some worldclass golf courses. He divides his time between the UK and Spain, and has membership at Felixstowe Ferry Golf Club in Suffolk.
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