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Calculate Golf Handicap

Manually Calculate Golf Handicap


Getting an official golf handicap requires a formal system of recording scores to the USGA, but you don’t need to go through that to get a sense of what your handicap should be. All you need are at least five recent scorecards and a calculator to calculate your free golf handicap.

The first thing you’ll need is the course rating and the slope rating for each venue played. The course rating measures what a “scratch golfer” (i.e. someone with a zero handicap) would be expected to score on that course, while the slope rating is the same number for a bogey golfer. Those numbers are often on the scorecard, but if not a quick phone call to the club will get that information for you.

You also might need to make some adjustments to your score, since handicap calculations use the Equitable Stroke Control (ESC) for every round. That puts a cap on how many strokes can be counted for any particular hole. To take one example, if you are a beginning golfer who hits four balls in the water on a par four and wind up showing a 12 on the scorecard, it gets marked down to a 10 for handicap purposes (since even a golfer with a 40-plus handicap is limited to 10 official shots per hole).

Calculate Golf Handicap
using this

Golf Handicap Formula

Then it’s off to the calculator. Here is the golf handicap calculation. To find your handicap differential, follow this formula, rounding to the nearest tenth:

(Your ESC score – course rating) * (113/slope rating)

So, for example, say you shot an 87 on a course with a rating of 70 and a slope of 120. You would plug in the numbers:

(87-70) * (113/120)

With the resulting score of 16.0 for that individual round.

To calculate golf handicap, take your individual differentials from your past 20 rounds, select the best 10 scores, and multiply that total by 0.96. If you’ve played fewer than 20 rounds you count a lower amount of rounds – for example, if you’ve only played five or six rounds, the lowest differential is the only one that counts, while if you’ve played 12 rounds you pick your lowest four when calculating golf handicaps.

The exact numbers are:

For 5-6 rounds played, scores used is lowest 1.

For 7-8 rounds played, scores used is lowest 2.

For 9-10 rounds played, scores used is lowest 3.

For 11-12 rounds played, scores used is lowest 4.

For 13-14 rounds played, scores used is lowest 5.

For 15-16 rounds played, scores used is lowest 6.

For 17 rounds played, scores used is lowest 7.

For 18 rounds played, scores used is lowest 8.

For 19 rounds played, scores used is lowest 9.

For 20 rounds played, scored used is lowest 10.





More Handicap Golf Info...

Are you curious about how to compete with fellow golfers, all with different skill levels? Understanding and Tracking your Handicap.

Begin now to establish your handicap by accessing this
Free Golf Handicap Formula.

Why have a handicap? And how do you determine it? Explaination of Why and How for Handicaps.

Learn about Handicap Golf Rules.

What handicap are you shooting for? Double bogey, bogey or bogey free scratch. Do you want to know What is a Good Handicap?

How to Break 80! A Proven Golf Instruction Program

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