same old

[Macmike2112]

I know someone is just gonna point me to some fancy explination, but I just need a quick answer involving handicapp. I see people talking about it all the time. Haha does you handicap basically mean if it's say 5 that on a par 72 you would most likely shoot a 77? Any help would help. Haha

Thanks.

[Yukari]

That is a very rough estimate. There is a formula to calculate what is known as the "course handicap". Because each course has a different level of difficulty (called slope and rating. Typically listed as rating/slope), you need to calculate the course handicap for the course you are playing in.

The actual equation is: handicap * slope / 113.

So, for example, if you are playing a course with rating and slope of 70/131, then a 5 handicapper would have the course handicap of: 5 * 131/113 = 5.8 or rounded up to 6. So that person is expected to shoot 70 + 6 = 76 on that course as "even par".

[David in FL]

Kinda sorta.......

Without getting into too much detail, a better quick explanation would be to understand that the purpose of the handicap is to allow players of differing abilities to compete against each other. Therefore, it's better to think that a 5 handicap is going to give 5 strokes over 18 holes to someone with a 10 handicap, who would give 3 strokes to someone with a 13 handicap.

Does that make better sense?

[tjy355]

  Macmike2112 said:

I know someone is just gonna point me to some fancy explination, but I just need a quick answer involving handicapp. I see people talking about it all the time. Haha does you handicap basically mean if it's say 5 that on a par 72 you would most likely shoot a 77? Any help would help. Haha

To answer your question quickly and without a lot of fancy explanation, no.

[case31]

  Macmike2112 said:

does you handicap basically mean if it's say 5 that on a par 72 you would most likely shoot a 77?

This is the common misconception about handicaps. It's not as simple as your average score. To severely oversimplify it, it's more of a calculation of your potential score.

As Yukari pointed out, you calculate your differential with the following formula: Handicap differential = (ESC score - course rating) × 113 / (slope rating) Then, the top differentials are averaged (Once you shoot 20 rounds, your 10 lowest differentials are averaged) and multiplied by 0.96.

[Macmike2112]

Thanks for all the help guys. One last question, can I calculate handi on 9? I normally only play 9.

[ScottRempel]

  Macmike2112 said:

Thanks for all the help guys. One last question, can I calculate handi on 9? I normally only play 9.

Yes.

Grab a program like Scorecard or go to OOB Golf and use their services to track your handicap.