What would your handicap be if...

[Hairy Feet]

UK       5.4

USA     2.9

WOW!

That is a huge difference. My home course is 6704yds, and where I posted 8 out of the 10 scores used in the calculations. Its also a tough seaside links course which if it had the slope rating system used in the US may have seen the handicap even lower. Very interesting and thought provoking

[ghalfaire]

No question that the different formula will make a difference.  But the difference isn't fixed and the handicap index will be affected different for different golfers (as you can see in the above posts).  For instance if all of the last 10 rounds had identical differentials then one would expect the handicap index in Australia will be lower by the following formula:  Aus=AM(.96-.93)/.96, or something slightly less than 3%.  But if you're a constantly improving gofer obviously the index will go even lower in Australia as the 2 worst rounds of latest10 are ignored.  Of course if you're a golfer on a downward trend for whatever reason it is also possible you're index in Australia could be more than the US index, although I would think you'd have to have much higher scores in the last eight of the last 10 to make up the 3% difference in multipliers.  But on has to think in general most golfers will have a lower handicap index in Australia.  I guess both systems are fair as long as your competition uses the same system.  But if you're on vacation abroad you could either make some money or get taken to the cleaners.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeNut

IE....this is where my mind was......

H

10/11

76

72.5/137

2.9

Using my formula 76-72.5x113/137=2.88 which is rounded to 2.9

Using .96:

76-72.5x.96=3.36..............which is way off.  The above is what I thought we were discussing................

(76-72.5) * (113/137) * 0.96 IF you want to apply the 0.96 multiplier to the individual rounds (which is not when it's applied).

We're discussing handicap index, not per-round.