Heres the situation – Player A is marking the cards of 2 new players so they can get their handicap. Can one of those players mark Player A’s card for inclusion in a comp?

I haven’t been at a club that disallows this so far. There may be some ruling somewhere, but I’m not aware of it.

Cheers
Brett

As a novice on rules myself & the fact that Player A is the Associates President I figured she must know. Shame if you’re right because the incident caused quite a rift.
Same player & a few of her mates tell me that only a player with a current agu handicap can be marker for an “extra card” for handicap. The way I read the rules, you just have to be a financial member of the club.

We have had a lot of new members join in the last 12-18 months. The only stipulation we put on them when doing their handicap cards is that they play with and have their cards marked by a member that is already carrying a handicap. This can be in competition or social.

This may be different for ladies, a lot of things are in golf! 8)

In the Netherlands the minimum requirement is that a marker has passed a written Rules examination. It is the same for men and women (no separate hcp. authority).

To obtain an official handicap (apart from the three scorecards), a player has to have passed the Rules test.

The requirement under the Golf Australia handicapping system is that the player’s card must be “attested by a golfer affiliated directly or indirectly with a State Association of Golf Australia”.

Basically that just means that they must be members of a golf club (could be a social golf club or Golf Access). They don’t actually have to have a handicap themselves.

I think all except Publish missed the point of the question.

Player B is a new member playing for Handicap. Player A is existing member. The question as I read it is can player B mark Player A’s card? The answer is YES, provided that Player B is a member of an affiliated club.

Publish
Does that apply to both situations?
a) the marker for a player wishing to get a handicap (ie not in a competition) and
b) the marker for a player in a competition.
The RoG do not require any specific qualification for the latter case and I am a little doubtful of the authority of anyone to impose such a condition overiding a RoG.

It applies to a).

Since in a competition everybody is a member of an affiliated club, even those joining the field to put in a card for handicap, I think the question is moot.

O.K. guys the way I see it player b) is in the process of submitting cards to gain a handicap, at my club during this process the player has not been accepted as a member by the committee and has only paid an application fee so is not a member thus cannot mark a card.
Cheers Hybrid

Publish / Hybrid

I agree that in the normal course of events it doesn’t matter because competitors will be marking each others cards but the definition specifies that the marker is someone appointed by the committee. Dec 6-6a/1 suggests that if the c’ee have not appointed one, the player may appoint his own. I can see no constraint on who that might be in the rules.

I will make some enquiries.

My fears were unfounded
The R&A have confirmed that the Committee may specify that players must not appoint (a) a non player or (b) a non member of the club as their marker

Thanks all for your comments. Sorry if I caused confusion with my second comment. As GoonerAl pointed out, the original question was whether either of the players not in the comp (because they didn’t have a handicap yet) could be marker for player A.
The second part, about marker for an extra card, probably should have been a new topic. But it just came up when the ladies were discussing the first incident.
Just goes to show though, how easy it is the get it wrong. And its usually because we’re too lazy to read the rules & just take what someone else (who has been playing longer) tells us – even if they work on that old theory, “when in doubt, talk louder”.

Publish At our club Cards submitted to gain a handicap must be signed by a member with an A.G.U. handicap. It is taken as a given that your marker during a competition is playing that comp & has a handicap.
Hybrid Your answer seems to suggest that you can not be a member unless you have a handicap. Surely that is not the case.

No Pom but all applicants must must be accepted by the committee at the monthly meeting and until they are cannot mark cards, unless they are transferring from another club and already have an official handicap.

Publish At our club Cards submitted to gain a handicap must be signed by a member with an A.G.U. handicap.

” ... A score returned for a non-competition round, attested by a golfer affiliated directly or indirectly with a State Association of Golf Australia, may be used for the purpose of obtaining an initial Australian Handicap … or to enable sufficient cards to maintain an Australian Handicap … if no CCR is available, the course ACR shall be used in place of a CCR.”

Any club member who is financial is a golfer affiliated with a State Association. There is nothing to stop two non-handicapped members playing together out of competition and attesting to each other’s cards. Obviously, the rounds must be played according to the Rules of Golf.

Johanna Could you please give us Aussies a short explanation of this Rules test you posted about?