I hate it when I play well and my handicap goes UP

[Soup Fan]

My last two rounds have been, by my standards, very good. I have broken/shot 50 (9 holes) back-to-back rounds on a relatively tough, championship 9 hole course. I have all but eliminated bad contact and, despite choking away 3 strokes on the last 3 holes today with the putter, I have begun to feel very confident in my game. The thing that bothers me, though, is that my handicap has gone up the last two times I posted scores. I was at at 24 when I posted a 49 and it bumped me up to 24.8. Then today I shot and posted a 50 and it bumped me up to 29.4.

Now, I know that the more rounds I post, the more scores my handicap is based on so if I am in the process of getting better, it is going to take a while for me to bring it down. In reality, I know it is just a number and what matters more is that I am starting to feel more confident and my game is improving, despite what my index says...it just bothers me a bit because the number indicates the opposite of what I feel.

[pjsnyc]

Don't 9 hole courses not count when determining your hc?

[iacas]

Now, I know that the more rounds I post, the more scores my handicap is based on so if I am in the process of getting better, it is going to take a while for me to bring it down.

Yeah, once you get to 20 rounds, your good ones will drop your handicap and your bad ones

might raise it. I went through a stretch this summer where I played like crap, yet my handicap went down. I suppose that's a better problem to have.

[N.V.M.]

i find that sometimes when you enter a relatively decent round, it'll bump off a really good round off the top 20 rounds, hence your HI goes up.

it's working in my favour right now.my last 8 rounds or so have been decent but those 8 rounds i've entered knocked off 8 rounds i shot a while ago that were'nt so good, which is really helping my HI.

[Soup Fan]

9 hole rounds are combined to create an 18 hole round, essentially, which is nice for those of us with financial and time constraints that dont allow for many 18 hole rounds.

[Dent]

I hate that as well, but Soup if I'm correct once it goes up, I always think to myself "Well, now it will be easier to bring back down."

[chingali]

You should try playing under the Aussie/British system, many times I have had an even par round and gone out by 0.1

[CG031]

Wait, you can combine nine hole rounds into 18 and post that on your handicap? What do you do? Double your nine hole score?

I don't worry too much about my handicap. I hit the ball sometimes as good as a scratch player, I just can't putt (like sometimes my putting is AWFUL, like 37 or 38 putts) and my score is reflected hard by it....as long as I know improving, and getting better, I'm happy.

[bcollins]

Wait, you can combine nine hole rounds into 18 and post that on your handicap? What do you do? Double your nine hole score?

They just add your scores for 2 consecutively played 9 hole rounds. If they come from the same course they use the Course/Slope Ratings as is. If the combined score is from 2 different courses, they add up the 2 9 hole course ratings and use the average of the slope ratings.

I don't have an official handicap, but this is how they do it on oobgolf.com and they use the USGA method.