Shot the round of my life...handicap question??

[kpaulhus]

So today I went out and birdied the first two holes....ended up with a +1, 37 on the front nine (11 putts). I was estatic to say the least. Well the back nine included 3 doubles and two bogeys so I ended up shooting an 82 overall (30 putts). Still my best round, with a 10.2 differential.

My question is that once I entered this into my handicap, which beat my previous round by 2 strokes, my handicap went down .2......Is this becasue I doubled the higher handicap holes? I'm kind of stumpped becasue I shot an 85 a few weeks ago on a equally difficult course and it dropped my handicap by .8. Anyone know the reason why today's round didnt drop it more than .2???

Thanks guys!

[iacas]

Anyone know the reason why today's round didnt drop it more than .2???

Because the score it booted from the last 20 wasn't significant. Either it was a high score that didn't count or it was a low one and you didn't beat it by a ton - but still enough to drop the handicap by 0.2 (which is two strokes over the 10 rounds).

[kpaulhus]

Ok I see. This was my 17th round of 2010 so Im assuming that this year it should change frequently with the number of rounds I plan on playing.

[Randy4h]

Handicap is based on a series of rounds, generally 20 rounds for a full handicap. The system takes the best 10 of those to use to calculate your handicap. When you added your latest score, the system dropped your round from 20 rounds ago. So if the round that was dropped was a good one, your handicap may not have dropped much.

The good news is keep shooting the lower scores and more of the high rounds will drop off and you will see a dramatic drop in your handicap.

[kpaulhus]

wait, so it drops my 20th round, regardless of how I did? Or just my 20th highest round?

[Randy4h]

Since the system only includes 10 of your last 20 rounds, when you add a score, it drops the score from 20 rounds ago, regardless of what you shot. Then it does the calculation on your 10 lowest differentials of your last 20.

[Randy4h]

Here's a good link on handicap formulas: http://golf.about.com/cs/handicappin...calculated.htm

[kpaulhus]

Thanks! I knew the formula, just didnt know about the 20th score being dropped. Oh well, either way I guess I just have to start shooting better scores :)