Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his \u201cLate Scratch?\u201d series here.<\/p>\n
No matter your golf goals and no matter your skill level, there\u2019s no reason not to have a Handicap Index. It\u2019s the best way to track your progress while also allowing you to play competitive matches against all types of players.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s the baseline I\u2019ve used for the past year while trying this whole \u201cLate Scratch?\u201d experiment as I\u2019ve watched my Handicap Index go down (Yay!) before seeing it creep back up (Sigh). While I haven\u2019t necessarily become a better golfer, I have become more of an expert on this metric, which I\u2019ve been tracking on the USGA\u2019s updated GHIN mobile app.<\/p>\n
Most golfers understand the basic function of the World Handicap System, but fail to grasp the details of how it actually works. To that end, let\u2019s run down some of the most common things people get wrong.<\/p>\n
Your disaster holes aren\u2019t as bad as you think <\/p>\n
This is one that a lot of people get wrong in part because the maximum score you can take on any one hole used to be more confusing. But as of 2020 under the World Handicap System, net double bogey became the max no matter your Handicap Index. To figure out the highest score you can take on a hole, you first have to convert your Handicap Index into a Course Index for that day. So if you\u2019re getting six strokes and it\u2019s one of the six hardest holes, you can take a gross triple bogey, which converts to a net double bogey. If it\u2019s the No. 7 handicap hole or higher, you can only take a gross double bogey\u2014which would also be a net double bogey in that situation\u2014no matter what score you made. This Equitable Stroke Control is in effect so that one hole doesn\u2019t completely wreck your score. And so that sandbaggers can\u2019t artificially inflate their Handicap Indexes.<\/p>\n
RELATED: How to get a Handicap Index<\/p>\n
Your disaster rounds aren\u2019t as bad as you think <\/p>\n
The World Handicap System is meant to reflect a golfer\u2019s potential, which is why only the eight best rounds\u2014by Score Differential, which is automatically calculated on the GHIN app using course rating and slope rating\u2014out of a golfer\u2019s past 20 count toward a Handicap Index. So, once you shoot something that isn\u2019t going to be in that top eight, it doesn\u2019t matter how much worse your score winds up being. That round won\u2019t drag down your Handicap Index because it will be one of the 12 rounds that isn\u2019t factored into it. Both this and the max score rule should make establishing a Handicap Index even more inviting for beginning golfers. Players of all levels can\u2014and should\u2014have one.<\/p>\n
Your Handicap Index doesn\u2019t always change <\/p>\n
It\u2019s great that the World Handicap System updates on a daily basis now, but that doesn\u2019t mean your Handicap Index will constantly change. I see people confused all the time when they input a good or bad score and their number doesn\u2019t budge. Again, it\u2019s an average of your eight best Score Differentials out of your past 20 rounds. So the majority of your rounds actually don\u2019t affect your Handicap Index.<\/p>\n
Your Handicap Index isn\u2019t tied to your last round <\/p>\n
Similarly, your Handicap Index isn\u2019t necessarily going to change in the direction of your latest score. I often hear people remark, \u201cHow did I go down when I just posted a bad score?!\u201d Well, because the score you\u2019re knocking off your card is just as important as the one you\u2019re adding. In fact, you could post a great score, but if you\u2019re knocking off an even better score from the past 20, then your Handicap Index might actually go up.<\/p>\n
RELATED: How to play a match using the World Handicap System<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to play full rounds <\/p>\n
First, I should clarify that you don\u2019t need to play 20 rounds to establish a Handicap Index. You\u2019ll have one after entering as few as 54 holes. But that brings us to our next point, which is that you don\u2019t have to play an 18-hole round to enter a score. As long as you play at least nine holes, you can enter that score for your Handicap Index. And no matter how many holes you play between 9 and 18, just enter the score for each hole that you played, and the World Handicap System will calculate a Score Differential for the round. It might look odd to someone taking a quick glance at your scores, but it allows golfers to post more scores and have a Handicap Index that better reflects how they\u2019re playing at the time.<\/p>\n
Your Score Differentials aren\u2019t always final <\/p>\n
There\u2019s a chance that Score Differential will change by the time you check the next day when it\u2014and your new Handicap Index\u2014becomes official. That\u2019s because after all the scores are recorded for the day at a certain course, a PCC or Playing Conditions Calculation is sometimes applied based on whether a course played particularly easy or hard that day. This adjustment ranges from -1 if a course played easier to +3 if it played harder. If the latter is the case, you will get more credit for how well you played and your Score Differential will be adjusted lower, thus, potentially bringing your Handicap Index down as well. And if you\u2019re confused by any of this, don\u2019t be. It\u2019s all kept track of by the GHIN app, which the USGA\u00a0recently upgraded.<\/p>\n
RELATED: What does it mean to be a scratch golfer? Probably not what you think<\/p>\n
Tournament scores don\u2019t count more <\/p>\n
You\u2019ve probably noticed that when you enter a score you can put it in as \u201cHome,\u201d \u201cAway\u201d or \u201cCompetition\u201d under score type. However, all those categories are weighted the same. That seems to be common knowledge for the home or away scores, but many are under the wrong impression that competition scores count more. Oh, and one other thing I found out this year with competition scores is that the tournament often enters these scores for you. So entering on your own will cause a duplicate entry. It happened to me earlier this year, but I reached out to someone with my local golf association and they quickly corrected my error.<\/p>\n
So, there you have it when it comes to how a Handicap Index works. Unfortunately, knowing these things won\u2019t help lower yours, but at least now you\u2019ll understand why it\u2019s moving\u2014or, not moving.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Can playing certain courses lower your Handicap Index?<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,36416,85],"class_list":["post-922256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-how-to","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}