What is the Handicap System?
The Handicap System is an agreed upon world wide system of assessing a golfers scoring ability, abbreviated HCP. There are 2 governing bodies that dictate the rules of golf and HCP system, the US Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient group (R&A) in Britain, the home of golf. The rules and HCP systems of each were similar, but not exactly identical until 2019. They have now harmonized their systems so a golfer in Germany can play a golfer in the US, Australia or Japan and compete nearly as equals based on their HCP’s.
How does a golfer get a Handicap?
A golfer must belong to a club OR join the USGA to get an HCP. Often when you join a club e.g. the women’s club at Balboa or Torrey Pines, part of the membership fee goes to the USGA and the club uploads your score into the system when you play with the club. You then download the GHIN App and when you play outside of the club, you can enter your scores as well. FYI, Lady Links is not a part of this system.
GHIN = Golf Handicap and Information Network
An individual golfer can download the GHIN App on their own and pay a small fee to the USGA. Don’t quote me on these costs, but I believe its about $60 for 1 year. However, if you select a member club during registration e.g. Emerald Golf Club in Oceanside, you can join for $35. You can also make your own friends group of up to 10 people and each of you pay $40. (Costs estimated and subject to change!)
The use of the GHIN App has made getting a Handicap so much easier and less costly than in the old days. Some of us will remember when you absolutely had to belong to a club and present the score cards to the club scorer who was the only one with access to a computer and he/she entered the scores to the USGA. This was a barrier to many of us who either couldn’t afford to OR didn’t want to join a club. Now everyone can get an HCP for relatively little cost.
How is a Handicap calculated?
Your Handicap is based on your last 20 scores. When you first start entering scores, your will get a provisional HCP with each entry until you have established 20 scores. The HCP is NOT an average of the 20 scores! It uses your BEST 8 Scores in the last 20 rounds and averages them out. If you have a couple of blowup rounds, they won’t raise your HCP. However, because its based on your best 8 scores, it is also not your general average, but your “best 8 average”. This system allows for you to have some bad days due to illness or injury or maybe rusty from time off playing without having significant effect on your HCP. It also caps your HCP if it starts to rise rapidly. If there is more than a 3 point shift in a short period, it holds your average until the algorithm can tell if its a true upward trend or just a bad few rounds.
Scoring vs HCP
Let’s say you’ve established an HCP of 25. Let’s examine what our expectations for scoring should be. It is not as simple as adding your HCP to par, but its close. So a par 72 + 25 HCP= 97 score might be what you think, but you’d be wrong. Each course is given a slope rating which is a numerical value to indicate its difficulty. The slope is used to determine how many strokes you get on the course: Slope/113 x HCP = Course HCP. Lets say we are playing at Balboa Golf Course with a slope of 120 from the Red tees. Slope of 120/113 x 25 HCP = 26.5 Course HCP. Don’t want to do the math, use the GHIN App. Once you input the course and the tees you’ll be using, the GHIN App will determine your course HCP. We’ll round 26.5 up to 27 and the course expected score would be 72 par + 27 course HCP = 99 score. However, we are not expected to score our HCP every round, remember this is our “best 8 average”. If we score within 3-5 shots of our course HCP, we’ve met our expectations. We are only expected to score to our HCP 20% of the time, i.e. once in every 5 rounds.
Competing with your HCP
You are playing against those golfers I mentioned earlier. The German has an HCP of 16, The Australian at 10 and the Japanese is a 5. You’re still a 25 and you might be thinking you’re about to get a smack down. But the HCP system saves you. If you look at the score card, each hole has a Stroke Index or SI. This is used to determine if a player gets a stroke on a hole. The Japanese will get a stroke on holes with SI 1-5, so only 5 strokes. The Australian gets a stroke on SI holes 1-10 and the German gets a stroke on SI holes 1-16. But with an HCP of 25, you get a stroke each and every hole!
The Japanese scored 82 (gross) minus her 5 strokes = 77 (net) ….She had a rough day.
The Australian scored 86 gross - 10 = 76 net…. She scored close to her HCP
The German scored 95 gross - 16 = 79 net… She had jet lag, not used to the heat!
You scored 97 gross - 18 = 79 net…. You had a great day!
You can see how the HCP is used to level out the play and allows for players of all skill levels to compete against each other.
Enter your Scores in GHIN!
New this year, the GHIN App allows you to enter 9 hole rounds as well as incomplete rounds. If you play twilight and only get 15 holes completed, you can still enter the round. After each round, pull up the GHIN App, select your course and tees and enter your scores. You’ll have a choice of entering total score, front 9 and back 9 scores or hole by hole. If you don’t complete the round, it is best to do hole by hole entry. GHIN then uses an algorithm that looks at your scores for each hole and the stroke index for each hole to determine your likely score for the remaining holes. This is then used for your HCP calculation.
Happy Handicapping!
The Handicap System is an agreed upon world wide system of assessing a golfers scoring ability, abbreviated HCP. There are 2 governing bodies that dictate the rules of golf and HCP system, the US Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient group (R&A) in Britain, the home of golf. The rules and HCP systems of each were similar, but not exactly identical until 2019. They have now harmonized their systems so a golfer in Germany can play a golfer in the US, Australia or Japan and compete nearly as equals based on their HCP’s.
How does a golfer get a Handicap?
A golfer must belong to a club OR join the USGA to get an HCP. Often when you join a club e.g. the women’s club at Balboa or Torrey Pines, part of the membership fee goes to the USGA and the club uploads your score into the system when you play with the club. You then download the GHIN App and when you play outside of the club, you can enter your scores as well. FYI, Lady Links is not a part of this system.
GHIN = Golf Handicap and Information Network
An individual golfer can download the GHIN App on their own and pay a small fee to the USGA. Don’t quote me on these costs, but I believe its about $60 for 1 year. However, if you select a member club during registration e.g. Emerald Golf Club in Oceanside, you can join for $35. You can also make your own friends group of up to 10 people and each of you pay $40. (Costs estimated and subject to change!)
The use of the GHIN App has made getting a Handicap so much easier and less costly than in the old days. Some of us will remember when you absolutely had to belong to a club and present the score cards to the club scorer who was the only one with access to a computer and he/she entered the scores to the USGA. This was a barrier to many of us who either couldn’t afford to OR didn’t want to join a club. Now everyone can get an HCP for relatively little cost.
How is a Handicap calculated?
Your Handicap is based on your last 20 scores. When you first start entering scores, your will get a provisional HCP with each entry until you have established 20 scores. The HCP is NOT an average of the 20 scores! It uses your BEST 8 Scores in the last 20 rounds and averages them out. If you have a couple of blowup rounds, they won’t raise your HCP. However, because its based on your best 8 scores, it is also not your general average, but your “best 8 average”. This system allows for you to have some bad days due to illness or injury or maybe rusty from time off playing without having significant effect on your HCP. It also caps your HCP if it starts to rise rapidly. If there is more than a 3 point shift in a short period, it holds your average until the algorithm can tell if its a true upward trend or just a bad few rounds.
Scoring vs HCP
Let’s say you’ve established an HCP of 25. Let’s examine what our expectations for scoring should be. It is not as simple as adding your HCP to par, but its close. So a par 72 + 25 HCP= 97 score might be what you think, but you’d be wrong. Each course is given a slope rating which is a numerical value to indicate its difficulty. The slope is used to determine how many strokes you get on the course: Slope/113 x HCP = Course HCP. Lets say we are playing at Balboa Golf Course with a slope of 120 from the Red tees. Slope of 120/113 x 25 HCP = 26.5 Course HCP. Don’t want to do the math, use the GHIN App. Once you input the course and the tees you’ll be using, the GHIN App will determine your course HCP. We’ll round 26.5 up to 27 and the course expected score would be 72 par + 27 course HCP = 99 score. However, we are not expected to score our HCP every round, remember this is our “best 8 average”. If we score within 3-5 shots of our course HCP, we’ve met our expectations. We are only expected to score to our HCP 20% of the time, i.e. once in every 5 rounds.
Competing with your HCP
You are playing against those golfers I mentioned earlier. The German has an HCP of 16, The Australian at 10 and the Japanese is a 5. You’re still a 25 and you might be thinking you’re about to get a smack down. But the HCP system saves you. If you look at the score card, each hole has a Stroke Index or SI. This is used to determine if a player gets a stroke on a hole. The Japanese will get a stroke on holes with SI 1-5, so only 5 strokes. The Australian gets a stroke on SI holes 1-10 and the German gets a stroke on SI holes 1-16. But with an HCP of 25, you get a stroke each and every hole!
The Japanese scored 82 (gross) minus her 5 strokes = 77 (net) ….She had a rough day.
The Australian scored 86 gross - 10 = 76 net…. She scored close to her HCP
The German scored 95 gross - 16 = 79 net… She had jet lag, not used to the heat!
You scored 97 gross - 18 = 79 net…. You had a great day!
You can see how the HCP is used to level out the play and allows for players of all skill levels to compete against each other.
Enter your Scores in GHIN!
New this year, the GHIN App allows you to enter 9 hole rounds as well as incomplete rounds. If you play twilight and only get 15 holes completed, you can still enter the round. After each round, pull up the GHIN App, select your course and tees and enter your scores. You’ll have a choice of entering total score, front 9 and back 9 scores or hole by hole. If you don’t complete the round, it is best to do hole by hole entry. GHIN then uses an algorithm that looks at your scores for each hole and the stroke index for each hole to determine your likely score for the remaining holes. This is then used for your HCP calculation.
Happy Handicapping!
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