My Official Handicap

OK swingers, looking for opinions and advice here.

Basically I just joined a club about 2 months ago and recently handed in my 3rd card towards an official handicap.

First card off the medal tee: 98
2nd card off medal tee: 92
3rd card off the yellow tees: 84

Course par is 66.

They have given me an official handicap of 12. I asked the guy on the phone if he was sure as I thought that seemed very low. He said it is correct.

Now my 84 card I also shot a 9 on the hardest hole after losing 2 balls, so may have broke 80. It was a yo yo round with a few birdies and a lot of pars, but still a few DBs.

But surely a handicap of 12 would assume Im scoring around 78. Ive never scored under 80 yet and occasionally still get one in the 90s on a bad day.

Surely Ive been hard done by here. I guess after a few more medal rounds my handicap will end up something more appropriate, but does anyone else think this is a bit harsh?

I guess in the future I can say I used to play off 12.

spiffo
handicaps are based on potential rather than average scores
the handicap sec will look at how you played the the low stroke index holes, depending on what the par is that 9 you carded maybe count as no more than a 6!

hope that helps

It has a lot more to do with course rating and slope, if you're a scratch golfer and your course has a par of 72 but a rating of say 74, if you shoot a 74 you played the course at level par according to the handicap, slope also has an affect i believe but i don't know how it relates. It's a complicated system that is beyond my comprehension lol, i just play and post my scores.

Like Slats said - it's about your potential.

Here in North America, you're expected to play to your handicap one out of every four times. I have no idea why, but that's how it is.

I currently play to my handicap once out of every four months.

I think that is a rather low handicap for you to start with based on your returned cards. I would have started you on something like 22 and see how you got on from there. If you have not played golf for many years you will normally be subject to fairly regular blow up holes.

Down here, "they" will adjust every hole where you carded worse than a double bogey back to a double bogey.

So "a few birdies and a lot of pars" together with a couple of "blow out" holes seems to me to indicate that maybe they got it about right...

Good luck with it...

Cheers

Over here that's called 'Equitable Stroke Control' and only applies to when you enter your score for handicapping purposes. It has nothing to do with the score you write on the card as you're playing. Post play, pre-score entry only.

Over here that's called 'Equitable Stroke Control' and only applies to when you enter your score for handicapping purposes. It has nothing to do with the score you write on the card as you're playing. Post play, pre-score entry only.

I was doing a bit of research and apparently in the UK we should be using the Congu system.

http://www.iol.ie/~mattman/golf/CONGU.htm#DESCRIPTION

Based on this I think my handicap should have been around 20-22. Surely such a big gap is an error somewhere.

A little common sense has to be applied to setting initial handicaps and I have been a member of a club handicap committee. As I said I would have put you on 22. If your play was better your HC would reduce fairly quickly but as it is set now would only increase by .1 per qualifier if you had a poor game.

I spoke to my club HC secretary yesterday. He is going to review my handicap <phew>.

The only bad thing now would be if I end up above 20, I've missed the club championship qualifiers for HC 21-28 which was on Saturday.

Thanks for all advice. I shall let you know what I end up with!

There are FAR too many handicap systems in this world.

In Denmark, we use the EGA handicap system. That starts you out at hcp 54, and then reduces you as your Stableford score improves. Above hcp 36, the reduction index is 1, so each stableford-point you score over 36, cuts your handicap by 1.0. Once you reach 36, the reduction index is 0.5, Further down the scale, the index drops to 0.4, 0.3, 0.2 and finally 0.1. That makes it progressively harder to drop your handicap, and reaching scratch can only happen in tournament play.

It seems to me that all these different systems make handicaps difficult to compare across borders.

Apart from that, it's beyond me how some people can shoot in the 80's in a matter of months after taking up the game. Heck, I still shoot in the 110's every now and then, despite a 20hcp, but have yet to break 90 after some 5 years. Mulligans? Gimmies?

__________________
//Mox
2008 bag:
Mizuno MX-500 460cc 10.5* Fujikura Tour Platform 26.3 stiff. (about to be replaced by MP-600 10,5* UST Proforce V2 stiff)
Mizuno F-50 3w 15* Fujikura Tour Platform 26.3 stiff.
Wilson Deep Red 5w 18* Graphalloy Fatshaft stiff
Cleveland HALO 3i hybrid 22* graphite regular
Mizuno MP-60e forged 5i-PW True Temper Dynamic gold R300 steel
Mizuno MP Black OX raw haze 50/6 GW, 54/9 SW, 58/10 LW
Heavy Putter B3-M
Titleist NXT Extreme

i just got off a course with a rating of 74.7, and a slope of 128. If you average your two lowest scores you come up with an 88. The USGA formula is "Score - Rating, X 113, divided by Slope..

So using the course I just played, and your two lowest numbers it would look like this.: 88-74.7 X 113 / 128. Or a handicap of 11.74

http://golf.about.com/cs/handicappin...calculated.htm

Hope this sheds some light. GJS

BTW, before anyone goes off on me about the number 88, That is just a number I decided to use to get close toyour 12. You would actually use the number 84 which would give you a handicap of 8.2.................

Interesting reply Junkie, Im not sure what the slope rating of my course is ive never seen anything like that. Most of it is on the side of a hill so I guess that would be a high slope rating.

Mox, its taken me over a year to regularly break 90 and I still often end up in the 90s on a bad day!

If the british summer ever decides to show up Im hoping break 80 for the first time! The 3 skills has taken about 10 strokes off my game without even trying, so Im confident I will get a score in the 70s in the next few months!

It is because you have played so few games. The higher scores will not count and thus you get what seems to be a much lower cap that you would have imagined.

Once you have played 20 games your cap will be roughly where it should be (as it only counts the best 10 of the 20 rounds carded, taking into account the course rating, it is known as a differential).

EDIT: just checked and they really shouldn't have given you a cap until you entered more than 5 scores. Here is the table of how many differentials are used in relation to total rounds entered:

Rounds Entered Differentials Used
5-6----------------1 lowest
7-8----------------2 lowest
9-10---------------3 lowest
11-12--------------4 lowest
13-14--------------5 lowest
15-16--------------6 lowest
17-----------------7 lowest
18-----------------8 lowest
19-----------------9 lowest
20----------------10 lowest

__________________
Personal bests:
18 holes - 92 (+21 02/08/06), 92 (+20 24/06/07)
9 holes - 43 (+7 02/08/06), 41 (+7 24/06/07)
Putts (18) - 30 (04/09/07)
Putts (9) - 12 (02/08/06)
Fairways - 11/14 ((02/08/06, 24/06/07, 01/08/08), 10/13 (09/06/07)
GIR - 5/18 (01/08/08)
Pars in one round - 7 (24/06/07)

Lifetime birdie count - 8 Latest - 03/09/08 - 7th hole Kingsway 318 yard par 4
Lifetime eagle count - 1 Latest - 15/06/08 - 4th hole Canadian G&CC 9 hole 481 yard par 5