I hope this helps some:

An INDEX is calculated by averaging the top ten scores of your last 20 rounds. The top ten scores are determined by the slope and difficulty of each course (i.e. an 80 from the front tees at an easy course wouldn't rate as high as a 85 from the back tees at an extremely difficult course). With an index, you can take to any golf course and they will compare that with the course chart to tell you what your handicap is at that particular course. You will notice your handicap will change from course to course, even from front tees to back tees at the same course!

The handicap on each individual hole on the scorecard is used to determine what holes you should get a stroke on. For example, if in a competition if you are a 10 handicap, that means you should be shooting bogey on the holes ranked 1 - 10 and par on the rest. Your 10 handicap would be applied to the hardest 10 holes and your score adjusted. OR, if you are a 24 handicap, you would get 2 strokes on the 6 hardest holes (ranked 1 - 6) and 1 stroke on the remaining holes.

__________________
Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall