Handicapping Master Thread

[TheNatural]

TheNatural: I see you are in DE. A buddy & I are coming over to Ocean City in a few weeks. We are playing Bayside in DE. It is the Jack Nickolas course just up from OC. You ever played it?

No but a friend of mine has,, he says its good...

[broscards]

I was looking into this, but if anyone knows a quick way to get registered with the GHIN of VSGA and get a handicap that will be recognized in tournaments let me know -

I dont want to join a course just for the ability to play in their tournaments..

Is there a free way to go about getting registered?

Thanks in Advance!

[TN94z]

Your state should have a website where you can login and register. Mine was 25.00 for the year. They associate you with a local course even though you don't play there and you can enter scores online. They encourage that you participate in events at this course but you don't have to. Ours has a handicap revision every other Friday.

[CarlSpackler]

You can pay $20 at our city courses, even if you are not a member to enroll in GHIN. It is an extra $15 to join the men's assoc and compete in their events.

[klaymon]

You don't have to be a member at a course. I just signed up at the course I play most often. They even moved over to Internet score posting this year. Cake.

[TN94z]

You don't have to be a member at a course. I just signed up at the course I play most often. They even moved over to Internet score posting this year. Cake.

That is a good idea as well...the courses in my area also charge for this. That is the biggest reason I did the online version. The course I play does not offer this and the other courses charge as much to do it there as I pay online. Once I added up the gas money it was going to take me to get to the course just to post scores, it was a much better deal to do it online....either way is good. Basically whichever is more convenient

[Montezumasdaddy]

I've been tracking my scores at Greenskeeper.org. I like the site, I can keep all my stats and track my handicap for free but I think I might be messing something up. I started the year out at 12.1 which is about what I have held the last couple of years according to the league I played in. But now it has ballooned up to 23.5. My last couple of rounds I didn't hit the ball well and scored pretty bad but I didn't think it would increase my handicap that much. I have had some decent rounds in there too which I figured would help to bring it down. My scores are listed below, with the most recent at the bottom, followed by the course rating and slope and # of hole I played. Maybe someone can find something I did wrong or maybe I am 23.5 handicap.

84 ~ Rating-71 Slope-117 (18 holes)
42 ~ Rating-31.3 Slope-111 (9 holes)
37 ~ Rating-31.3 Slope-111 (9 holes)
35 ~ Rating-31.3 Slope-111 (9 holes)
46 ~ Rating-35.2 Slope-128 (9 holes)
46 ~ Rating-70.8 Slope-112 (9 holes)

[jonnythan]

Shot an 84 over 18 holes on a par-71?

Your handicap is correct.

[alf174]

I've been tracking my scores at Greenskeeper.org. I like the site, I can keep all my stats and track my handicap for free but I think I might be messing something up. I started the year out at 12.1 which is about what I have held the last couple of years according to the league I played in. But now it has ballooned up to 23.5. My last couple of rounds I didn't hit the ball well and scored pretty bad but I didn't think it would increase my handicap that much. I have had some decent rounds in there too which I figured would help to bring it down. My scores are listed below, with the most recent at the bottom, followed by the course rating and slope and # of hole I played. Maybe someone can find something I did wrong or maybe I am 23.5 handicap.

FYI: For a USGA HI, 96% of the average of your lowest last ten of twenty 18 hole scores (differentials actually) would be used. Your 9 hole scores would be combined to create 18 hole scores.

[mb22]

Shot an 84 over 18 holes on a par-71?

Based on this single score, it looks to be quite incorrect...

(Score - Course Rating) x 113 / Slope Rating (84-71) x 113 / 117 = 12.56 12.56 x .96 = 12.05 index Obviously you need more scores to calculate the handicap, and looking at the others it would be quite a bit higher, but I do not think 23 is too high

[paperclip]

Here's the way I calculated it:

ScoreRatingSlopeDiffBest x 96%Index

84 7111712.55512.05312.0(best 1 of 3)
79 62.611116.695
(ie 42+37=79; 31.3+31.3=62.6, 111+111/2=111)
81 66.511913.768
(ie 35+46=81; 31.3+35.2=66.5, 111+128/2=119.5)

If 3/3 used, then 14.33913.76613.7

You would combine the 1st 2 9-holes to make an 18 hole score then combine the next 2 9-holes to make an 18 hole score (you add the 2 9-hole ratings together and average the 2 slopes). Therefore for this illustration and forgetting about needing the 5 score thing, if it was best 1 of 3, your index would be 12.0, if you considered all 3 your index would be 13.7. 23 is therefore too high.

The 5th 9-hole score is not used yet and is "banked" to be combined with the next 9-hole score to be played in future.

Hope this makes sense and hope you can follow this in spite of the lousy formatting above.

[fredloves2golf]

After combining the 9-hole scores, you only actually have 3 18-hole scores listed here. While it's true that a handicap is based on the 10 best of the last 20 scores, when there's less than 5 scores present, the handicap is based upon just the lowest one, which would be the combined 79.

Using that score and the formula (ESC score - rating)*113/slope*0.96, you're handicap should be a 16.

I'm the handicap chairman of my golf club; I'm supposed to know these things.

As you increase the number of posted scores from 5 to 20, there's a progression of how many scores are used in the handicap calculation... i.e. when you get 7 scores, I believe we then look at the best 2 scores, etc. There's a table in the handicapping section of the USGA site that explains this. I don't have a link handy.

[jonnythan]

Based on this single score, it looks to be quite incorrect...

I misread the question and skipped to the scores too quickly! I looked at the handicap he had listed in his profile, which was 12.

[jonnythan]

After combining the 9-hole scores, you only actually have 3 18-hole scores listed here. While it's true that a handicap is based on the 10 best of the last 20 scores, when there's less than 5 scores present, the handicap is based upon just the lowest one, which would be the combined 79.

Doesn't he use the lowest handicap index, not the lowest score?

An 84 on a course with a rating of 71 and a slope of 117 gives a lower index (12.55) than a 79 on a course with a rating of 62.6 and a slope of 111 (16.69). 12.55 * .96 = 12.

[zeg]

Doesn't he use the lowest handicap index, not the lowest score?

I think that's right, but it's the lowest "differential."

Also, until you have 5 18-hole scores you technically don't have a handicap at all, IIRC.

[fredloves2golf]

Doesn't he use the lowest handicap index, not the lowest score?

My mistake, you're absolutely correct.. It should be the lowest differential that the handicap index will be based on. Oops!

[kris]

ok, I recently calculated my new handicap to be 20.1 (will change in profile soon). My best round is a 90 and I have had a few rounds in the 90s. However, I am by no means shooting solely in the low 90s. I have an occasional (a couple recently) blow-up round over 100 (100-106).

I know you're supposed to use the lowest differential to calculate the handicap but I still have a hard time believing my handicap is truly 20 while still shooting occasionally in the 100s. This is a pretty generous way to calculate skill if we essentially just "throw out" the bad differentials, but hey, I'm not complaining.

[NotAStick]

ok, I recently calculated my new handicap to be 20.1 (will change in profile soon). My best round is a 90 and I have had a few rounds in the 90s. However, I am by no means shooting solely in the low 90s. I have an occasional (a couple recently) blow-up round over 100 (100-106).

It's about allowing you to compete with other players.

If you have a good day (about as good as your top 20%), you should shoot a net even par (score minus handicap). Bad days (the other 80%) you should shoot over par.