The Kickers Tournament in Golf Explained
A Kickers Tournament allows organizers to crown both a gross score (actual strokes played) winner and a net score (strokes played minus handicap) winner. But note that the net score winner in a Kickers Tournament is not (necessarily) the low net, but rather the golfer who matches or comes closest to matching the target score.
The target score (usually somewhere from 60 to 72) is determined by tournament organizers prior to play, and not revealed until the end of play. If organizers announce after play that 65 is the Kickers net score, and your net score (using you self-selected handicap) is 65, then you are a winner.
In The Complete Book of Golf Games (affiliate link) by Scott Johnston, the "Kicker's Tournament" is defined this way: "The tournament committee picks a number at random, usually between 60 and the course par. This number remains a secret until the end of the tournament. Players then select whatever handicap they want. The object is to end up with a net score that's as close as possible to the secret number. The player whose score is closest to, or equals, the secret number is the winner."
If you know the range from which the winning score will be drawn (between 60 and par in this example), then, of course, you are selecting a handicap for yourself that you believe will get you into that range. Let's say you typically score around 85. You know the winning Kickers score will be somewhere between 60 and the par of the course you are playing. You select a 17 handicap that you believe will get you into that range. If you wind up scoring 82, then your Kickers score is 65 (82-17=65). If you score 90, your kicker score is 73, and, if the par of the course is 72 or lower (as most are), you know you are out of the running before the winning Kickers number is even announced.
One way to think of a Kickers Tournament or Kickers Handicap is that it is a test of how well you know your game. But winning a Kickers Tournament is primarily about luck. Yes, you need to choose wisely for your handicap. But it mostly comes down to the luck of the draw — the draw of that day's target score that the tournament organizers do before anyone tees off.
And it's important for the organizers to keep that number secret until after all play is concluded to make sure nobody tries to manipulate their score to match the winning Kickers score.
Note that the terms Kickers Tournament and Kickers Handicap are often interchangeable with a probably more-common name for the game, Honest John. Also note that different groups may spell it slightly different: Kickers, Kicker's, Kickers' or Kicker.
Old Meaning of Kickers Tournament
There is also an older version of Kickers Tournament that bears no resemblance to that described above: A format in which golfers get the option to use one mulligan on every hole (excluding strokes on the green) was called a Kickers Tournament. We're not sure how common that format was, but under that name it is no longer seen today. Other formats still in play today that are similar include No Alibis, Play It Again Sam, Mulligans, Wipe Out, Replay, and Criers and Whiners (all of which are really just synonyms for each other).More formats:
Sources:Employee Recreation. "How to Organize an Industrial Golf Tournament," 1960, Employee Recreation, Incorporated.
Golfdom. "Revise Events Program to Increase Members' Play," February 23, 1946, https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golfd/article/1946feb23.pdf.
Johnston, Scott. The Complete Book of Golf Games, 1995, Mustang Publishing.
USGA. "Tournaments For Your Club," via Southern California Golf Association, https://www.scga.org/pdfs/volunteers/1941/tournaments_for_your_club.pdf.
