We are all golfers in Kenya, unknowingly

A handicap is a number assigned to a golfer to show how good s/he is at hitting a small ball into a small hole. Men’s highest handicap is 28, while women’s is 36. The handicap (ujinga ya golf) comes down as you become more experienced.

On most golf courses, you have 72 tries to hit the ball into 18 holes. If you hit it in less than 72, you are under par; if more than that, you are over par. In a competition, the winner is the one who hits the ball into the holes the fewest number of times.

A hole has a tee, where you hit the ball at the beginning; a fairway; and the green, where the small hole is located, identified by a flag. Holes are either par 5, par 4 or par 3. Par 5 means you are given five tries to hit the ball into the hole, the same applies to par 4 and par 3

Where does the handicap come in? A handicap ensures experienced and inexperienced golfers can play together without one getting undue advantage. Say your handicap is 13 and Tiger Woods’ is 1. At the end of the game, Tiger gets a total score of 73. His net score is 73 less one (his handicap), that is 72. If your score is 84, your net score is 84 less 13, or 71, and you beat Tiger.

A high handicap means you are allowed to make more mistakes.

Enough digression. Why is everyone in Kenya a golfer?

The reason is that handicapping is being used to equalise us. It has other names, such as affirmative action, quota system, equalisation, etc. In high schools, the quota system is the handicap; good performers are equated with poor performers. A student scoring 400 in one county will find himself in a national school with another student with 300 from a county considered marginalised (whatever that means).

The handicapping nowadays also tries to equalise private and public schools. Are national examination results not handicaps showing our limits? The popularity of higher education is driven by the desire to improve our intellectual handicap.

In the Constitution, we introduced handicaps based on gender so that men and women could be at par (golf-speak). Never mind that in golf, women hit balls a shorter distance than men but do not complain. It is now possible to get a good job because of your gender. Even in university, women are admitted with lower cut-off points.

Interestingly, we have handicapping in taxation, where the best performers in business pay higher taxes than sluggards who make little profit, if there is no cheating.

Our Constitution brought in some handicaps in revenue distribution, where some counties that produce little get more money.

Main objective

Handicapping’s main objective is to equalise people and to moderate natural laws, where the fittest survive. Some argue God also gave us some handicap-limited lifespans.

Proponents of the handicapping system in golf argue it makes the game more exciting and reduces tension — unless you are betting.

At the national level, we could argue that handicapping in schools and in jobs ensures peace and harmony because some people are more endowed intellectually than others. Some regions are endowed by nature with rain or natural resources. Thus, sharing makes lots of economic and social sense.

Some argue that the resulting harmony makes it easier to generate more wealth and everyone benefits in the long run.

Opponents argue that handicapping create joyriders who eat from the sweat of others, and discourages hard work. In the long run, all become losers.

Any handicapping system must build incentives for the hard workers. In golf, the low handicaps do not complain because it gives them prestige and bragging rights.

In Kenya, handicapping is popular, not because of the peace and harmony that results (we are still waiting for this), but because of the feeling that some communities have benefited disproportionately in the past and need to be handicapped to wait for the rest.

In education, handicapping has led to a thriving industry in private schooling. In the job sector, a vibrant private sector, less controlled by quotas and other handicaps, produces most of the goods and services in the world. However, it creates an underclass with no prospects for upward mobility.

In taxation, entrepreneurs either use creative accounting, or relocate to countries with less handicapping in taxes.

The handicap system in golf has survived this long because it is self-checking; there are no referees in golf and honesty is cardinal. In national handicapping, honesty and self-checking are not always there. There are also lots of incentives to be dishonest.

For example, who is really marginalised in Kenya? A person owning 1,000 heads of cattle in an arid place or a farmer owning an eighth of an acre near Nairobi? Why should a girl from Alliance, who grew up in Lavington get into university because of her gender, despite her having two points less than a boy from Turkana who walked to school for four years?

Unknowingly, we are all golfers, losing or benefiting through a handicap system. Let us watch how it will evolve as we get more literate, and more linked to global systems and networks.

The writer is senior lecturer, University of Nairobi School of Business. [email protected]