Dr Frank Stableford

Golfing Herald looks at the life and legacy of Dr Frank Stableford, who will forever be synonymous with the game of golf. The scoring system he devised germinated for almost four decades from conception to inception. As the late golf writer and commentator Henry Longhurst famously said:

“I doubt whether any single man did more to increase the pleasure of the humble club golfer“

A fairway of formats

Unlike any other sport, golf has so many competitive formats (and what at times feels like an infinite variation of formats!) that provide such variety and different challenges but all with a common objective of recognising the best player or team.

Maybe with the odd exception, the annual fixture list of a Golf Club will primarily be comprised of competitions that are individual stroke play or Stableford. These will be complemented by the annual match-play knock-out competitions (individual and pairs).

This staple diet of a golfer, either in competition or practise, will be peppered with an eclectic mix of Fourball Better Ball, Texas Scramble, Foursomes, Greensomes and for the golfing aficionados …….Skins, Patsome, Chapman……and yes, Bingo Bango Bongo is a recognised format that can be played by 2, 3 or 4 players.

The above is far from an exhaustive list and no doubt there are other golf formats named after their respective creator, but the Stableford, created by Dr Frank Stableford, is the only format named after the creator that is recognised and played throughout the golfing world.

Early Life

Frank Barney Gorton Stableford was born on 24th April 1871 in Oldbury, Worcestershire. According to the 1881 UK Census records, his father John (a Timber Merchant), mother Elizabeth Jane, 2 sisters, 4 brothers and 2 domestic servants were residents in Oldbury.

By the time of the 1891 UK Census, Frank was now aged 20 and a medical student living in Handsworth, an urban area in North West Birmingham, with his sister Gertrude (more of her later), brother William (a mechanical engineer) and his widowed mother (sadly his father died in 1885 aged only 39).

At some time before the end of the 19th Century, the family moved from Birmingham to Cardiff, as an entry within the National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) for Cardiff shows that his mother died in 1899 aged 50.

By now, Frank Stableford was a qualified Doctor. He was a Member of the Royal College of Physicians (L.R.C.P. Lond. 1894) and the Royal College of Surgeons (M.R.C.S. Eng.) and a member of The Glamorganshire Golf Club.

The Glamorganshire

Established in 1890, The Glamorganshire Golf Club is located in Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 7 miles Southwest of Cardiff and is one of the oldest golf clubs in Wales.

In 1898, Dr Frank Stableford devised his embryonic points-scoring system, which was trialled by fellow members on 30th September 1898. At that time, the stroke indexing system (where each hole has an index number allocated to it between 1 and 18) was not available so all holes were played against Par with points scored as we do today (1 for a Bogey, 2 for a Par, 3 for a Birdie, etc.). The points accumulated by a player over the 18 holes were then added to 1/3 of their handicap! Thus, if a player had 18 bogeys playing off a handicap of 12 then the adjusted score would have been (18×1) plus (12/3) = 22 points.

Stableford did not actually compete in the trial but he did donate a prize to Mr W Hastings Watson who won the competition with 42 points. The maximum handicap for this trial was 15, thus favouring better golfers (maybe a coincidence but Dr Stableford was a very good golfer playing off a single-figure handicap at that time).

No minutes or artefacts exist on whether the trial was repeated or what were the thoughts and views of the participants.

Boer War and WW1

Dr Stableford served as a Civilian Surgeon during the second Boer War (also known as the South African War) from 1900 to 1902. During this conflict, he was mentioned in despatches and received the King and Queen’s Medals and Clasps.

In 1903, he saw action again, this time as a surgeon in the Somaliland Campaign (also called the Anglo-Somali War). He received the African General Service Medal, Somaliland Clasp.

In WW1, he served as a Major with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) from 1915 to 1918, based in Malta and southern Italy, where he treated soldiers who had returned from Gallipoli.

Royal Porthcawl

After returning from the Boer War, Dr Stableford was a member at Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, located on the coast between Cardiff and Swansea and is one of only 66 Golf Clubs in the world to have the Royal prefix. This course has hosted many major championships including the Amateur Championship on 7 occasions and the Walker Cup in 1995.

In 1907, playing off a handicap of +1, he won the Royal Porthcawl Club Championship and in the same year, he was a semi-finalist in the Welsh Amateur Championship.

In 1910, Dr Stableford married Roberta Elizabeth Frances Dunn. She was from Egremont, an area of the town of Wallasey, on the Wirral Peninsula.

Anglesey

After serving his country in WW1, Dr Stableford was a member of the Anglesey Golf Club.

Anglesey Golf Club was founded in 1914 as a collaborative effort by local notables. They owned part of the common on which the golf course was built but paid a fee to a Board of Conservators, who manage the whole common. None other than Harold Horsfall Hilton, who won the Open twice, the Amateur Championship four times and the U.S. Amateur Championship once, was commissioned to create a links golf course.

One of these local notables was Dr Henry Stinton Lowe, a former Sheriff of Anglesey. He was married to Dr Stableford’s sister Gertrude and he practised medicine locally with Dr Stableford.

Minutes from Anglesey Golf Club show that in 1922 Dr Stableford was elected to the committee on which he served until 1927. There are a number of references to Dr Stableford in the minutes throughout his time at Anglesey, in particular, his various fundraising ideas to purchase new greens equipment!

During his time on the challenging links at Anglesey Golf Club, Dr Stableford was further developing and fine-tuning his points-scoring system.

Wallasey

Wallasey Golf Club, situated on the Wirral Peninsula not far from Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, has a very proud history having hosted final qualifying rounds of the Open Championship on a number of occasions.

Dr Stableford was a member of the Wallasey Golf Club for many years, including being Captain in 1936 and later becoming an Honorary Life Member.

The Stableford scoring system had its genesis in his desire for fairness in that if a player had a bad hole (or 2) then there was no need to “tear up their card”. This was (and still is) the case in stroke play format if a no-return is recorded on a hole.

So almost 35 years after the initial trial at The Glamorganshire Golf Club and with the advent of the stroke index, Dr Stableford was finally in a position to present a scoring system (that is still used to this day) to the Wallasey Golf Club council.

At first, it was thought much too complicated but all doubts were dispersed after the first recognised Stableford competition, which was held on 16^th May 1932 and was won by Mr Frederick Lister with a score of 36 points.

Legacy

Dr Stableford continued to play golf well into his eighties until his death in 1959. His legacy reaches far beyond golf but it will be for the golf scoring system that he will be remembered ad infinitum.

In 1969, as a tribute to Dr Stableford, the inaugural “Frank Stableford Open Amateur Memorial Trophy” was played at Wallasey Golf Club. This annual Stableford competition continues to this day at Wallasey Golf Club as a major event in the amateur golfing calendar.

So the next time you play in a Stableford competition, you may wish to just pause and reflect on the history associated with this most popular scoring system and say thanks to its creator……Frank Barney Gorton Stableford.