Do you carry an official handicap?

[acegolfer]

If not, how do you calculate your handicap?

[Paradox]

i don't have it official but I use this website http://www.mobilegolfstats.com/ and it uses the same formula as the USGA. Gathering differentials, dividing by the total number of diffs, multiply by .96..tada..index!

[kpaulhus]

I use a website that calculates is with the USGA. I can print an official card anytime I need one.

[bplewis24]

If not, how do you calculate your handicap?

Before I had an official handicap with the NCGA, I just kept my handicap with the software application I used on my phone. The software stores all of my scores on oobgolf.com, and they calculated the handicap for me. Right now my oobgolf handicap is like 14.1 and the NCGA (official) handicap is 13.4. I believe the difference is because there is a very small, short 9-hole course I play that is not in the NCGA database, so I can't record those scores.

Brandon

[Fourputt]

If not, how do you calculate your handicap?

I use GHIN. Been in a men's club for 21 years and have kept my handicap through them for that entire time. As far as I know, you have to pay a fee through some sort of organization in order to establish and maintain an official handicap. I've never seen a free site which would be recognized as "official". I'm also a bit wary of those who keep one through places like Golfsmith because there is no oversight to prevent sandbagging. That requires membership in a club or league with an active handicap committee.

[ghalfaire]

I believe in order to have an official handicap it has to be through a USGA recognized organization. But this is possible by joining a league at your local course for a nominal fee. My golfing buddy did this this year and it was $25/year. It is worth it to have a USGA certified handicap as most tournaments require you have one and the fee is pretty small. If you want to keep your own for your own edification you can but it won't be recognized as legit in most places.

[kpaulhus]

I've never seen a free site which would be recognized as "official".

This is true. Mine is $15 a year....plus anyone can go online and check my scores. I guess the only validation I have though is the guys I played with that day.

[acegolfer]

I've never seen a free site which would be recognized as "official".

I think this is true. My league shopped for the lowest cost to get official handicap 3 years ago (before I joined). We ended up with myscorecard.com, which is $9.95 per year. But it's not automatic. You need to belong to a USGA sanctioned group in addition to get an official USGA HI. I have not seen a lower cost than $9.95 a year.

[zeg]

I believe a fee must be paid to the USGA to get their blessing for a club to be part of the system and use the USGA trademarks, etc, which is why you'll never see a free official one.

I don't keep an official one, but I keep my scores meticulously using both Scorecard and oobgolf and both of these services compute your handicap using the official formulas. I do it this way because I like some of the features of each tool --- Scorecard because I keep all my data locally and don't rely on someone else's server to maintain my data, and oobgolf because I have some friends who use it and it's a bit easier to share scores, etc. I use either the Scorecard app or GolfCard on my iPod Touch to enter scores during the round, so keeping it in two programs only requires manually entering the score once.

It's actually been worth the effort to have the redundancy because I've found bugs, either in the software or in the course rating/slope data, several times when there was a disagreement between the handicaps reported by the two systems.

[TourSpoon]

A local course near me charges $20 a year for their GHIN services.

[TN94z]

I have been keeping mine through my state's golf association. I also have Scorecard and have used OOBgolf.com in the past.

[sean_miller]

If your handicap isn't official the calculations are pretty easily done in any spreadsheet program - or by hand. Or at least they are once you have enough rounds - knowing how many rounds to use when is the sketchy part.

[lsuwjk]

Not official, I use a free site called fairway files..

[James_Black]

I'm only after getting an official one since I never entered scores before.
I'm "officially" off 25.

http://golf.about.com/od/handicaps/l...dicapincal.htm
I used that to calculate my handicap when I played my old course. It said 10.1 but I thought that was a little low so a bumped it up to 13.1

[zeg]

I'm only after getting an official one since I never entered scores before.

Sandbagger!

[sean_miller]

Sandbagger!

I think James' club should just roll dice for handicaps before every match - come on boxcars - damn, snake eyes!!

[DocWu1948]

Yes. This is the first year. Probably just use a spreadsheet next year.

[DaSportsGuy]

I have one through my club and fairwaysandgreens.com.