In the previous post we discussed scoring. But no discussion of scoring would be complete without talking about The Handicap. So in this installment of Understanding The Game I will tackle The Handicap. Well, actually I won't. I have picked up a lot of things living with The Golfer, and one of those things is how important The Handicap is to the game. But I haven't managed to actually pick up on the details, as it were. This is what I know. The lower your handicap is the better golfer you are. After I play a round I enter my score and the slope and course rating into the GHIN and it spits out my current handicap. And that pretty much covers it. So, to explain The Handicap I turned to an expert. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Golfer........
The Wife asked me to write an answer to the question 'What is a handicap?'
There is the simple answer and the complicated answer. The simple answer is the handicap is what makes Golf the perfect game. Anyone can compete against anyone else and have a realistic chance of winning.
For example, The Golfing Family occasionally goes out for a round of golf. Generally, Golfing Offspring #3 (GO3) and I play against Golfing Offspring #2 (GO2) and The Wife. We play for milkshakes. Because you MUST play for something. The level of skill is somewhat lopsided, GO3 and I together being somewhat higher than GO2 and The Wife (because of me, mostly). However we still end up buying the milkshakes about half the time. Why? Because of the handicaps. At the end of the round each player's handicap is subtracted from their gross score to give their net score. Lowest net score wins.
For a simple example lets say two people play a round. Player 1 has a handicap of 10 and Player 2 has a handicap of 25. Little bit of difference in skill level (the lower your handicap the better player you are). Player 1 scores an 82. Player 2 scores a 95. Player 1 subtracts his 10 handicap from 82 and his net score is 72. Pretty good. Player 2 subtracts 25 from 95 and his score is 70. Player 1 is buying the milkshakes. And that is why the handicap system makes Golf the perfect game.
The complicated answer is that there is a complicated formula that takes several things into account and produces a number that is a handicap.
Each course has several sets of tees. Traditionally there have been 3 sets, blue( farthest away from the green. The Back Tee.), white ( middle distance ) and red (closest to the green. The Forward Tees). Recently courses have been adding gold, or champion, tees, which are farther back than the blue tees, and green, or super forward, tees, which are closer to the green than the red tees. Even more recently courses have begun naming the tees with names other than colors. There can be hundreds of yards of distance between the most back and most forward tees. The farther the tees from the green, the better the player you have to be to play from those tees. Each set of tees has both a Course Rating and a Slope. If you look at a scorecard for a given golf course it will show the rating and slope for each set of tees. The slope and course rating go into the calculation of your handicap.
Golfers in the US keep track of their handicap using GHIN - Golf Handicap Information Network. Most courses have a computer linked to the GHIN. When you finish a round you enter your score and the rating and slop for the tees you played from, into GHIN and it re-calculates your handicap for you. You can look up your current handicap before you play a round.
You must enter 5 scores before you can get a handicap, although your first handicap will only be based on the best score of those 5. After that each time you post a score your handicap is recalculated. When you have entered 20 or more scores ( those of us who have played for years have entered thousands of scores ) your handicap is calculated on the best 10 scores of your last 20.
If you have a handicap of 0 you are considered a 'scratch' golfer. Professional golfers carry no handicap.
As for the actual calculation. Here it is in a nutshell. If you really want all the detail look here or here.
Let's say I shoot a 79 at a course with a rating of 70 and a slope of 130 on the blue tees. To start subtract the rating from the score:
79 - 70 = 9 to get what's called the differential
Then you apply the slope adjustment. Multiply the differential by 113 ( the slope of an average golf course ), then divide that by the slope of the course I played.
(9*113)/130 = 7.823 which is called the adjusted differential.
Of course, you must account for equitable stroke control which says that for a given handicap range you have a maximum number of strokes you can take on any one hole. So, because my handicap is under 9 I am only allowed to take a maximum of a double bogey on any hole.
Take the best 10 adjusted differentials of my last 20 scores, add them up and divide by 10. Then we take 96% of that number (why 96%? Even I can't explain that. But it's the rule. ). That is my index. Each time I play my index is used to determine the handicap I play with on that particular course.
Let's say my index is 3.3, and I'm playing a course with a 132 slope. My handicap that day is:
3.3 * 132/ 113 = 3.85, and with the magic of rounding, I will be playing with a handicap of 4 that day.
(Editor's comment: While The Golfer would love to have a 4, he currently carries a 7.6 handicap )
Comments