A changing of the rules?

Revised world handicap system

The World Handicap System is being updated in 2024 with certain changes to make submitting your scores easier.

It is a real pain having to cut your round short, so as long as you’ve completed the minimum number of holes required for your score to be acceptable, the WHC will fill in the gaps on the holes you don’t play based on your handicap index.

Smaller courses are rising in popularity, and so the minimum length requirement for a course to obtain a course rating is being lowered so that players can submit their scores at more courses.

The World Handicap System will also take into account your playing conditions on any given round, accounting for weather and course setup that may make the course play harder or easier on a given day.

Ball Rollback

It’s not just the different Tours that have got people voicing their opinions, a proposed ball rollback is scheduled to come into effect at the end of the decade, with Professional play being impacted in January 2028, and recreational play in January 2030.

In a nutshell, the ball rollback is combating the year-after-year increasing hitting distances of top players. Many consider the advancement of technology a threat to the game’s existence. As players can hit over them, golf courses’ carefully designed features are being rendered obsolete.

By updating testing conditions for golf ball conformation to compensate for modern tech, governing bodies feel this will combat hitting distance. As a result, the fastest Tour players will lose an estimated 13-15 yards on their drives, and with top LPGA players losing 5-7 yards.

The ball rollback regulation will impact every level of competitive golf, from Tour championships to local club competitions.

Jay Monaghan, the Commissioner for the PGA Tour claimed with regards to the ball rollback “the only objective we have is keeping the long-term health of the game in mind.”