To – All Australian Clubs

 

Dear All,

 

I am writing to provide you with some further information on the World Handicap System (WHS). The WHS will take full effect in Australia on 30 January 2020.

The WHS involves less change for Australia than it does for any other country. We have produced A2-size posters to help you to inform your members about what is in the WHS, and what the changes are for Australian golfers. Three copies of the poster were mailed to your club in the past few days. Where applicable you may, for example, wish to display one on a general club noticeboard, one in the women’s locker room, and one in the men’s locker room.

The poster can also be downloaded from www.golf.org.au/whs. Whilst we have printed the poster in A2 size, it has been designed to enable you to print it on your own printer in A3 size should wish.

We have added a page to the GA website which provides a range of information on the WHS. The address for this webpage is www.golf.org.au/whs.

Approximately 14 days prior to 30 January, we will send a brief email to the 270,000 club members in our handicap login database to remind them of the go-live dates for the WHS, and to provide them with a reference to www.golf.org.au/whs.

We are currently developing new Daily Handicap look-up chart functionality that will produce look-up charts in accordance with the World Handicap System formulas. This functionality will be available on www.golf.org.au by mid-January 2020 (ie it will be released PRIOR to the WHS launch on 30 January – this will give you time to prepare for 30 January). We will send a communication to all clubs when the WHS Daily Handicap look-up chart functionality is available. (You can still produce Daily Handicap look-up charts for the current Daily Handicap formulas – to access the existing functionality on the GA website, click on “Play” in the main menu, then under “Scoring & handicap” you will see “Ratings & Daily Handicap charts”.)

Golf Australia’s national computerised handicapping service (GOLF Link) will be taken offline from 27 to 30 January 2020. During this time, GA Handicaps will be recalculated using all of the new WHS regulations. We will soon provide advice on the exact offline/online times for 27-30 January.

For the period between Monday 27 to Thursday 30 January, we would encourage you to schedule ambrose/foursomes/teams type competitions that will not require handicap upload. Handicap events played during this period can only be submitted when GOLF Link resumes on Thursday 30 January.

Where a club chooses to increase its Daily Handicap limits (due to the new WHS GA Handicap limit of 54.0 for both men and women), you should consider the impact this will have on your stroke index and scorecards.

 

Can I also please remind all clubs that as we are almost 12 months into the operation of the new Rules of Golf, it is important that all local rules and scorecards now be compliant with the new Rules. We do thank you for your cooperation on this point.

 

We will soon be providing further updates on the WHS, but please email us on rules&handicapping@golf.org.au if you have any queries.

 

Kind regards,

 

Simon Magdulski​

Senior Manager – Play Management & Regulations, Golf Australia

Mobile 0409 214 320

Level 2, 111 Coventry Street

​South Melbourne

​VIC 3205 

​Australia​

​Telephone: 03 9626 5050

​Website golf.org.au