Mysteries of your golf handicap explained


Although most avid American golfers have a USGA handicap, not everyone knows how it is calculated. We know only that it goes down a lot faster than it goes up, especially just before that big tournament.

The current method of determining a golfer’s handicap is as follows: take the best 10 round scores of your last 20 rounds, average them, then multiply by .96 percent. If all rounds were played at the same course, your score in excess of the course rating will be your handicap. If some rounds were played at other courses, the calculation gets tougher, as each course’s rating comes into play.

This is all very complicated, and I’ve often heard golfers wonder why their handicap can’t just be an average of all the rounds he has played that year, or even a portion of his latest rounds. Well, I’m glad you asked.

The concept of a handicap was initiated once the explosion of golf courses in Great Britain occurred in the last years of the 19th century. Before that, golfers played at their home course and negotiated handicaps with opponents each week, based on their knowledge of each other’s game.

The usual method of giving strokes was to give one every second or third hole, or in extreme cases one or more on each hole, with no consideration given to each hole’s relative difficulty.

Another method was to just give the less-talented opponent a certain number of “bisques,” which were strokes that could be applied at the conclusion of any hole at the discretion of the bisque holder.

Once a relative plethora of courses became available and inter-club competition became more popular, it was obvious that a uniform method of determining a golfer’s abilities was necessary to get to a level playing field.

This was especially difficult at this time because courses were so disparate, some having 12 holes, others 18 or 9 (pick a number), and par for these courses could range from the low 40s to the high 80s, loosely determined by length.

The first handicap system that presaged the current philosophy was established in England by the Ladies Golf Union. A few years later, in 1911, the first USGA system was established and consisted of averaging the best three rounds of the current season.

By the 1930s fractional handicaps were established, and a crude method of integrating course ratings was incorporated. At this point, there was an ongoing discussion as to whether a handicap based on gross medal scores was appropriate for match play.

The argument was that a player who shot say, in the mid 80s but with a healthy mixture of birdies and triple bogeys would have an unfair advantage in match play over someone who had the same total score on a regular basis but who was much steadier.

This was the genesis of what became the Equitable Stroke Control, which currently limits a single-digit player to posting no more than a double bogey on any score submitted to GHIN.

Other handicap ranges use maximum stroke numbers on any given hole. This evened out the “blowup holes” and made handicaps more useful and representative for purposes of creating parity in matches. The 96 percent multiplier used in today’s handicap compilation formula helps in this aspect, as well.

Today’s handicap is the result of a lot of work. I spent a day learning how to rate a local course with a USGA expert and was amazed at the detail that went into analyzing the difficulty of each hole, including the width of the fairway at landing areas, the size, depth, shape and position of each bunker (don’t call them sand traps, especially in the presence of a USGA guy), overhanging trees, green configuration and contour and on and on. All this to determine the course rating and slope, which is part of your handicap calculation.

It’s a shame to see such work go to waste when golfers, traditionally regarded as honest, self-penalizing paragons of rectitude, a slice of principled chocolate torte in a sea of self aggrandizing, conniving sports melba toast, resort to mutating their handicaps for personal “gain.”

Categories: Tucker
William Tucker

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