"Potential, not average."

[StricklandPropane]

  walk18 said:

If you want an official usga handicap, just head over to the pro shop of the course you play at most and ask for one. I believe it's $30. Then you enter your scores (from any course) at a computer they have set up there or online. Then there are a bunch of free ones online as well, but not all tournaments accept them. Now you know.

So I can only enter them there? How long do I have to post scores? Can I go a month in between postings? Don't really have a home course yet, so sometimes I'd go a month in between playing a course twice.

Actually my driving range has a really nice 9 hole course that is USGA rated. Does everyone that has a rating have this service? I could just do it there if so. I'll have to ask next time. Thanks.

[adamgoodman]

I'm trying to help my pops calculate his handicap... Do I go by his best ten scores EVER or in an allotted time period?

[canadaddy]

Here in Canada our provincial golf associations run public player programs so that players like myself, who don't belong to a club, can carry an official RCGA handicap. Is there not a similar program in the states??

As for the question above, you would need to know the best 10 scores from your dad's last 20 rounds.

[Doctorfro]

At our club we have a webpage where we can go online and post our scores. Having a handicap at a usga club is golden. You know, it may cost $20-30 a year but it's worth it because when you go to play in a tournament (somebody's member-guest, etc.)you're legit.

[drglew]

  canadaddy said:

Here in Canada our provincial golf associations run public player programs so that players like myself, who don't belong to a club, can carry an official RCGA handicap. Is there not a similar program in the states??

Heck, we don't even provide universal healthcare in the USA, let alone handicaps!

Joking aside, i think from other posts on similar topics there are certain states' golf associations that can get one registered for an official USGA handicap for a fee. Or as others have said, you can pay to get a handicap at most public courses for less than $50/year (in GA, that also gets you membership and the appropriate junk mail from the GSGA). There are also some online "clubs" that offer official USGA handicaps, again for a fee, although the USGA did tighten the rules a few years ago about those "clubs" (i.e. they had to provide tournaments/competitions and you had to play rounds with other "club" members if i recall).

[tsdnorton]

Meant to me potentional. By taking their top 10 and multiplying by .96. It shows what they can shoot.

as opposed to Average.

Which would be everyscore added up and divided by its origin for a perfect AVG. IE: I shoot ONE 68 and 10 85's. (I know not probably) but My Avg would be reduced by that one low scored as opposed to being where it SHOULD be.

[double_j]

Here's a quick question - forgive me, too lazy to search.

When they say that you should only 'shoot' your handicap once in every five rounds or so (or whatever the % might be), does that mean that you'll shoot your actual handicap over par 20% of the time, or that you'll score a differential consistent with those used in your handicap calculations?

For example, if I'm an 8 and play a course with ratings of 75/150, will my "20 percent" round be an 80 (8 over par), or an 86 (handicap of 8 adjusted for ratings)?

[sonicblue]

  double_j said:

When they say that you should only 'shoot' your handicap once in every five rounds or so (or whatever the % might be), does that mean that you'll shoot your actual handicap over par 20% of the time, or that you'll score a differential consistent with those used in your handicap calculations?

You adjust your 8 for the slope, then add it to the rating: 8*150/113+75 = 86. If you shot that score, you will have 'played to your handicap.' The figure you refer to is 25% (more on that below), so generally speaking, you'd only be expected to shoot that 1-out-of-4 rounds.

*********** Guys, it's pretty easy, anyone can set up a spreadsheet, or even do it by hand. 1) For each round, calculate your "differential (D)." It starts, not with your score (S) relative to par, but relative to the course rating (R), to account for 'easy' vs. 'hard' courses. You then adjust for the slope (L) of the course relative to the 'average' course, currently considered 113. Mathwise, it's just (S-R) * 113 / L = D. 2) Out of your most recent TWENTY rounds, you take your 10 BEST D's and average them, then multiply by 0.96. Think of it this way. If you straight averaged your last twenty rounds (assuming 'normal' (in)consistency), you'd have about half higher than your average, and half lower. Well, the handicap calc throws OUT the half that's higher, so your handicap - in words - measures "when you play BETTER than your average, what's your average?" Now think about those ten best scores/differentials you kept and averaged. Again, with normal (in)consistency, about five of those will be lower than your handicap, and five will be higher. Now bring back in those ten bad rounds you threw out (which will obviously be higher than your handicap). That means, out of your last 20 rounds, you played 5 to at or lower than your handicap, and 15 higher. That's why they say, you'll only shoot your handicap about 25% of the time. I've advocated for it before, that I think it's worthwhile to compute your 'anti-handicap.' That is, back at step 2, keep your 10 WORST rounds, and average them, then multiply by 0.96. That will give you a measure of, "when you play WORSE than your average, what's your average." The spread of that vs. your actual index measures your consistency, and an undertaking just as worthwhile as lowering your handicap, can be lowering your anti-handicap, which is the same as saying becoming more consistenct, and isn't that what a whole lot of us really want? Maybe you currently shoot 90 usually, and it may not be reasonable to expect you'll suddenly shoot 78's, but it'd sure be nice NOT to bust out the 105. Of course, computing the anti-handicap isn't the cure. That's like saying, "if I just got my GIR % up to 85%, I'd really score well." Statistics just provide some other tangible motivation. If all you worried about was your handicap, maybe you end up grinding too hard out there, always looking to log that low score. Anti-handicap may give you motivation to say, "you know what, I'm not trying to shoot 80 today, for the next month, though, I'm going to try to get all those 100+ rounds out of my index calculation," and you focus on course management instead, making just 'solid' shots, not heroic shots, e.g. Just a thought.

[soloredd]

I belong to a local eClub, which doesn't put you at a "home course", but eClubs are affiliated with GHIN, and more importantly for me, gets me an NCGA membership. I am going to be moving from the eClub to a home course next season though, since I got a membership at a local course.

[double_j]

  sonicblue said:

You adjust your 8 for the slope, then add it to the rating: 8*150/113+75 = 86. If you shot that score, you will have 'played to your handicap.' The figure you refer to is 25% (more on that below), so generally speaking, you'd only be expected to shoot that 1-out-of-4 rounds.

Thanks for the information. Very helpful.

It's weird, when I was first starting out, I had it in my head that a single digit capper was a ridiculously good golfer. Now that I've learned about it and have gotten there, it seems a bit of a let down that you can be a single digit and still consistenly score in the mid 80's. I'm not unhappy with my play, it's just that breaking into the single digits wasn't as significant as I thought it would be. On the plus side, it's nice to know that I don't have to put a ton of pressure on myself. The 84's and 85's I've been putting on the card aren't a reason to get frustrated and are actually normal. Anything lower than an 81 is 'outlier' good. Thus far this season, I've been using 79 or lower as my basis for an 'exceptional round' on an index of 7.8. What a relief!

[sonicblue]

  double_j said:

Thanks for the information. Very helpful.

Just remember it this way: your index is a DIFFERENTIAL, not a 'to-par' score, and it's a differential at an "average" slope course. So, you adjust the differential for the slope of the course you're playing, then you add that to the RATING to get your expected score. Again, though, that's WHEN you play to your handicap, which should only happen at 1-in-4.

If that's your home course, that's a damn hard course. The 75 rating says that a scratch golfer would only by expected to shoot 75. The slope of 150 (which really means 1.50) says that, for every digit above scratch you are, you'd be expected to shoot 1.5 shots worse than that. So, yeah, if you're shooting mid-80s on a course like that, good on ya. For comparison, Bethpage Black is rated a 76.6/148.

[msd3075]

  sonicblue said:

If that's your home course, that's a damn hard course. The 75 rating says that a scratch golfer would only by expected to shoot 75. The slope of 150 (which really means 1.50) says that, for every digit above scratch you are, you'd be expected to shoot 1.5 shots worse than that. So, yeah, if you're shooting mid-80s on a course like that, good on ya. For comparison, Bethpage Black is rated a 76.6/148.

I'm sorry to sound blunt, but your explanation of what slope represents is

COMPLETELY incorrect. "Slope" is the slope of the line connecting the Course Rating to the Bogey Rating on a "Rating" vs. Handicap plot. Yes, you are correct in that it determines how a non-scratch golfer compares to a scratch golfer, but the method you state for determining how many stroke above you are is absolutely incorrect. If you want to know how many strokes above a scratch golfer you are, you would use the Course Handicap formula which is as follows: Course Handicap = Handicap Index * ( Slope / 113 ) Using that formula, you'd expect to play 1.3274 shots worse that a scratch golfer for every digit above scratch that you are.

[sonicblue]

  msd3075 said:

Using that formula, you'd expect to play 1.3274 shots worse that a scratch golfer for every digit above scratch that you are.

Completely incorrect? The rating is, inherently, a SCORE. 'Scratch rating' is what a scratch golfer would score, 'bogey rating' is what an 18 handicap would score, correct? So, the x-axis is handicap, the y-axis is score. You calculate the slope as rise/run, which equals (change in score) / (change in index), and when reduced to obtain a 1 in the denominator, is the same as saying (additional strokes per unit of handicap), and the implication is that you can interpolate/extrapolate that line to any handicap. That's exactly what I said in words. The only difference between our net math, is I missed the 113, which you (correctly) didn't.

As an example, if a course rating was 72 with slope 113, the 18 handicap would be expected to shoot 90, correct? So, now let's say that a rating is 74, with a slope of 137 (approximating 1.25 * 113). The 18 handicap would now be expected to shoot, not 18 strokes, but 25% * 18 above it (~97). But, in theory, I could take that all the way down to a 4 handicap, and say that he would be expected to shoot, not 4 strokes over the rating, but 1.25*4 = 5 strokes above it, or 79. That is, for each digit you are above a scratch, you can be expected to shoot the slope (/100) * your handicap (and, yes, /113), above that. Unless my math degree and reading comprehension is completely abandoning me, I don't see where missing a divisor of 113 makes me 'absolutely incorrect.'

[iacas]

  sonicblue said:

Completely incorrect? The rating is, inherently, a SCORE. 'Scratch rating' is what a scratch golfer would score, 'bogey rating' is what an 18 handicap would score, correct? So, the x-axis is handicap, the y-axis is score. You calculate the slope as rise/run, which equals (change in score) / (change in index), and when reduced to obtain a 1 in the denominator, is the same as saying (additional strokes per unit of handicap), and the implication is that you can interpolate/extrapolate that line to any handicap. That's exactly what I said in words. The only difference between our net math, is I missed the 113, which you (correctly) didn't.

137/113 is closer to 120% than 125%.

But beyond that, yes, the slope of the line is 113, and except for the 25/20 thing, what you say is right. I wish they'd just made it 100 to keep things simple but nooooooooooo, they had to choose 113. :P

[sonicblue]

  iacas said:

137/113 is closer to 120% than 125%.

Bah, did 113/4, got the 2, had the 33 remainder, then did 4*8=32, but took the '4' part of that to get 24, instead of taking the 8 to get 28. It's a curse to be able to do math in your head, but not always have the patience to extract the right figure as the numbers conk around in your head! Yes, so it should have been 113+28 = 141 for my example, ya got me!

[double_j]

  sonicblue said:

Just remember it this way: your index is a DIFFERENTIAL, not a 'to-par' score, and it's a differential at an "average" slope course. So, you adjust the differential for the slope of the course you're playing, then you add that to the RATING to get your expected score. Again, though, that's WHEN you play to your handicap, which should only happen at 1-in-4.

One note - by no means is my home course 75/150 - that was an extreme example to make the numbers different enough for my question to be clear. My home course is a much more reasonable 72/132 at 6700 yards from the blues (74/134 from the tips at 7000). 84 (+12) tends to be my upper limit for what I'd consider a decent day (about 3 strokes over where my differential would put me) but I do tend to get frustrated when I don't card an 80 or below every 4 or 5 rounds.

[msd3075]

  sonicblue said:

Completely incorrect? The rating is, inherently, a SCORE. 'Scratch rating' is what a scratch golfer would score, 'bogey rating' is what an 18 handicap would score, correct? So, the x-axis is handicap, the y-axis is score. You calculate the slope as rise/run, which equals (change in score) / (change in index), and when reduced to obtain a 1 in the denominator, is the same as saying (additional strokes per unit of handicap), and the implication is that you can interpolate/extrapolate that line to any handicap. That's exactly what I said in words. The only difference between our net math, is I missed the 113, which you (correctly) didn't.

I don't want to get into it because it's obvious from your recent post that you do infact understand how the handicap system works.

That being said, the post of yours that I quoted earlier gave an extremely simplified interpretation of how slope works and when read by someone that doesn't understand how handicaps work would lead them to believe that they just multiply their handicap index by the slope/100 to get the number of strokes they should receive. It just adds to the confusion for the average golfer. And not to be picky, but the bogey rating is based on "about a 20 average", not an 18. It's actaully based upon a range of handicaps all averaging to about a 20.

[double_j]

The US handicap system is ridiculous. It seems so arbitrary.

Average slope = 113?
Bogey golf = 20?

So technically, making a bogey on every hole on a course of average difficulty is really better than bogey golf. I see the linear relationship between the 113 and the 20 over, but wouldn't it have just been easier to set the average slope 100 and have bogey golf equal 18 over as a result?