HOW TO BECOME A REFEREE
Rule book and a set of radios and said, ‘Get yourself off to St Pierre in Chepstow and go and run this event.’ There was no training!”
You may think low-handicappers are well versed in the Rules, but it ain’t necessarily so. “When you start digging into them, you know very little,” Mcfee admits. “I had to learn pretty quickly, but somebody gave me the tip very early in my career that the Definitions are the key.
They’re the building blocks of the Rules, so I spent a lot of time learning the Definitions.”
Moving with the times
Mcfee, who joined the European Tour in 1983, reassures me that things are a little different now. “We started a programme of getting younger people in and then began to look at ex-pros, who not only had an understanding of the game but also the pro game. From there, we got European Federations to suggest people we might be able to train. We send them up to the annual Referees School at The R&A.”
So, is there an official golf referees’ qualification? Not really, but The R&A does operate a three-level Rules education programme, of which that annual Referees School – officially the Tournament Administrators and Referees Seminars (TARS) – is the ultimate step. Shona Mcrae, assistant director – Rules at The R&A, actually did her exams while working at The Emirates Club in
Dubai. “Although there isn’t a recognised qualification, that level-three exam is what most organisations or associations will require of an individual before they’ll put them out in the field,” Mcrae tells me.
The pass mark is 60 per cent, but that won’t be enough to see you refereeing at golf’s biggest events.
“The R&A, European Tour and certain other organisations would require people to have passed with 80 per cent or better before they would consider them becoming part of the refereeing team,” Mcrae clarifies. TARS is by R&A invitation through the international and national governing bodies under its jurisdiction. Demand for the 100 places a year is high, so The R&A also takes TARS on the road around the world, with candidates for both options typically put forward by their national organisations.
The level-one course is much more accessible. It is not only available through the national golf associations, but also on The R&A’S website. “We’d recommend it to anybody interested in getting involved in helping at their golf club,” Mcrae tells me. “It covers the basics and is good if you want to become a bit more Rules-savvy. It’s also the first stepping stone if you wanted to become a referee.
“Level two then goes into the Rules in much more depth – it’s a proper examination. It includes an interactive session where, for example, I’m the player and you, as the potential referee, have to give me a ruling.” Level two is not available online, with the courses administered by golf’s various national associations around the world.
In 2019, The R&A’S national affiliated unions and associations carried out 107 seminars – 64 at level one in 14 different countries and 43 at level two in 20 different countries, with 61 of them taking place in Asia.
“I would say that 95 per cent of the referees in the world are volunteers,” Mcrae tells me. “This is not an occupation for them. I wouldn’t even consider that of myself. Usually, people who get involved will do a bit at their club and then assist at county level, then maybe at national level with
“There I was at The Open. The hairs on my neck were standing up”
the home unions. Then they might get put forward to assist at a European Tour or R&A event.”
That’s exactly how it happened for Ray Smith from my old home club of Crowborough Beacon, who is now president of the Sussex County Golf Union. Ray was invited to join the Sussex County committee around the turn of the century and started attending more county events.
“I kept being asked to do a little bit more and as a result the chairman of the south-east group said, ‘You might as well take the exam,’” he tells me. “It was a county qualification through the EGU at Woodhall Spa. I did quite well, so that qualified me to take county events. I hadn’t been doing that for very long when the EGU said, ‘Would you consider taking The R&A exam?’ I went for that and by 2007 I was a qualified R&A referee.”
Reaching the top
Ray fared a little better than me with 92 per cent. He joined the England Golf tournament panel, becoming a regular referee at its events. Fast forward four years and he found himself walking the fairways of Royal St George’s as an Open Championship referee: “Never in all those years did I have any ambition to be a Rules official, but there I was walking down the 18th with my group. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.”
Smith cites an incident at a junior event as one of his trickiest. “A young boy was adamant it was a five on one hole, but his fellow player said it was a six,” Smith explains. “I had to call them all together and say, ‘let’s go through it shot by shot.’ Eventually, the youngster, who was quite upset, agreed it was a six. But I later found out from his mother that if he went home with a six on his card, his father was aggressive. All he was trying to do was avoid a home situation. That upset me.”
Mcfee’s two trickiest moments both resulted in the disqualification of Padraig Harrington, first for failing to sign his card when leading the 2000 Benson & Hedges by some margin. “I just asked him one question,” Mcfee says. “‘Could you show me your signature on this card?’ And, of course, he couldn’t.” Then in Abu Dhabi in 2011, he had to disqualify him again for moving his ball on the green, failing to replace it and therefore signing for a wrong score. TV evidence brought the incident to light. “That was difficult. I didn’t sleep too well that night,” Mcfee reflects, “but Padraig was brilliant about it.”
Final word for anyone pondering getting into refereeing goes to Smith: “Go into it to enjoy it but not to be officious,” he advises. “To me, it’s the interaction with the players, and whenever you get called in for advice or have seen a situation, they’re stressed. It’s the handling of that situation that is actually more difficult than the Rule or ruling.”