GOLF

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 581, 6 February 1929, Page 13

GOLF

NEW ZEALAND COUNCIL

(Special to THE SL’.V ) WELLINGTON. Tuesday. Practically all the New Zealand golf courses have now been allotted their new standard scratch scores, and the New Zealand Golf Council decided at a meeting last evening to request clubs immediately to adopt these as a basis for handicapping. The adjustment will be made by eliminating the bogey and adopting the scratch score which will, in most cases, be anything up to three strokes lower than bogey. The difference, whatever it is, will be added to members’ handicaps. Afterwards handicaps will be adjusted according to scores against the standard scratch score.

It is to be hoped that clubs will now give some serious attention to their handicapping. The new system puts New Zealand handicaps on a comparable basis with Australia and England, but so long as the haphazard checking of scores and handicaps remains as it is at present in the majority of clubs, the benefit of the new system will be discounted. On advice from Wanganui the council decided to defer the question of inspection of Belmont course, Wanganui, until the March meeting. Belmont will see the New Zealand championships this year if it stands up to the inspection. The council authorised James Watt to tour the clubs in the Far North as he did last year, the council’s professional, John Lambie, to be available for other clubs.