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Yeah i've golfed for a couple years but never really as hard as this year and its been such a great sport to get into. I just wanted to know how you figure your handicap out? Still kinda dont know all the terminology and tid bits so any help would be great thanks!

well, most courses will have some kind of system set up where you can enter your score after your round and it will calculate your handicap. These are usually USGA certified handicaps. If you dont care about having the USGA cert, there are many free options on the net...check out Yahoo's: http://golf.sports.yahoo.com/tracker

to calculate your own, you could take the best 10 scores out of your last 20 rounds and average out how much over par you were...this will give you a rough idea of your handicap.

Well, according to my dad, it used to be that you would just take the # of strokes you were over par each round, and average them out to find you handicap. The true way is very strange and complicated, it involves the slope of the course, course rating, and a whole bunch of crazy calculations.

http://www.usga.org/playing/handicaps/manual/index.html

Here's a link to the USGA webpage, that explains how it all gets calculated.
Hope it helps!

Everything you need to know about handicaps.

http://www.usga.org/playing/handicap...em_manual.html

Basically you record a "handicap differential" for each round you play, for example -

Adjusted Gross Score - USGA Course Rating : 95 - 71.5 = 23.5
Difference x Standard Slope: 23.5 x 113 = 2655.5
Result / USGA Slope Rating: 2655.5 / 125 = 21.24
Handicap Differential (rounded): 21.2

To get a handicap index you need at least 5 rounds (differentials) recorded. You only use your best and most recent differentials up to the best 10 out of your most recent 20 rounds.

Add up your best differentials.
Divide by the number of differentials to get an average.
Multiply that average by .96
Drop everything after the tenths' digit.
That's your handicap index.


Also when scoring, if you have a bad hole you may have to record 2 scores, one for handicapping purposes and your true score on the hole. If your handicap is under 8 you can't record more than a double-bogey for handicapping puposes. Between 9-18, 7 is the max, 19-28, 8 is the max, etc. That's the nuts & bolts of it. There's much more than you'll ever probably need to know in the above link.

thanks for the info i do remember seeing those at the local golf course where you can enter your score........thanks for the help

One other thing that I've noticed with the GHIN system (USGA's official handicap system) is that they only use your best score(s) to calculate your handicap. If you usually shoot mid-90's and have a round or two in the high 80's, that's all they'll use for a while.

The idea behind that concept is that the handicap is to be as reflective as possible of your potential, not your average.

As others have mentioned, slope comes into play which can vary par for handicap purposes by about 3-5 strokes on some difficult courses.

Very good things posted. The key to handicaps though is to realize that PAR has NOTHING to do with the handicap and is not in the formulas anywhere. The only reason this is key is when accusing someone of sandbagging, it pays to know the process. For an approximation of the handicap, subtract the course rating from your score.

Nice link! Bookmarked, baby!