SECTION 2 — THE HISTORY OF COURSE RATING 1870
The first measure of course difficulty was termed ‘Par’. In 1870, British golf writer A H Doleman asked two leading professionals, Davie Strath and Jamie Anderson, what score would be required to win the Open Championship Belt at Prestwick. Their response was that perfect play should produce a score of 49. A H Doleman called this ‘Par’ for, the then 12-hole, Prestwick course.
1890
In late 1890, Coventry Golf Club allocated a scratch value for each hole, which they termed the ‘ground score’. This was a score that a fictitious low handicap player was expected to achieve on each hole, scoring 4 on long par 3’s, 5 on long par 4’s, but otherwise playing flawless golf. In May 1891, Mr Hugh Rotherham conceived the concept of each player playing a match against the ground score on each hole. Dr. Thomas Browne of Great Yarmouth later referred to the imaginary opponent as a ‘regular bogey man, not easily caught’ and the term ‘bogey’ was widely adopted. In 1892 when this format was adopted at the United Services Golf Club, a golfing facility for Army and Navy officers, Mr Bogey was granted the honorary rank of Colonel and the term Colonel Bogey was born.
1893
In 1893, the Ladies Golf Union (LGU) was formed led by honorary secretary Miss Issette Pearson. With the assistance of fellow Royal Wimbledon Golf Club member Dr Laidlaw Purves, the LGU established a uniform system of handicapping, based on the ‘par of the green’, a fixed score that a lady champion might achieve when playing her best. Robert Browning’s History of Golf quoted that “within eight or ten years the LGU has done what the men had signally failed to do – had established a system of handicapping that was reasonably reliable from club to club.”
1905
Mr Leighton Calkins, who became the Chairman of the Metropolitan Golf Association, authored a pamphlet ‘A System for Club Handicapping’. Par was the basis of this system, defined as perfect play without flukes, under normal weather conditions, allowing for 2 putts on each green. In addition to this standard to determine course difficulty, a player’s handicap was determined by the average of their best three scores with an additional ‘Calkins reduction table’ adjustment relative to the par of the course.
1911
The USGA adopted its first Course Rating System in 1911, in which course ratings were based on the play of U.S. Amateur Champion, Jerome Travers. Determining course ratings based on the expected score of the national amateur champion became accepted and course rating in the USA was born.
1925
When The R&A assumed responsibility for running the Amateur Championship, they became acutely aware that something had to be done to establish uniformity within handicapping to ensure that all participants in the Amateur Championship were worthy of their place in the field . This objective led to the establishment of the British Golf Union’s Joint Advisory Committee, who were assigned the task of establishing a uniform system of handicapping for golf in Britain. In 1925, this Committee released The Schemes for Standard Scratch Scores and Uniform Handicapping.
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