Beginning Golf – The Golf Handicap System Will Help You With Competitive Play

 When playing golf there is a standard handicap system that is used by all golf courses. It is used in matches and tournaments. The idea behind the handicap system is to try and level up the game to make it an even playing field and a more competitive competition.

 A golfer’s handicap is based on the differential between score and par achieved by the golfer in the last 20 rounds he has played. The handicap is based on the lowest ten games of these twenty. All games are on 18 hole courses. These games should all relate to one season. Some golf associations will accept fewer games. It is important for a golfer to have a handicap as this will help with fair play when playing golf against others.

A golf player is given a handicap numbered one through to thirty-six, the number one being the lowest handicap, and the number thirty-six being the highest handicap. A scratch golfer has no handicap, better known as a scratch player.

So how do these handicaps come into affect when playing golf? Well firstly you need to determine the difference between your handicap and that of your opponent i.e. if your handicap is 10 and your opponent’s handicap is 20 the difference is 10. This means that you will have to allow your opponent an extra 10 shots over the 18 hole course.

So how do you know which holes you can apply the ‘free’ shots to? On scorecards you will find at the bottom a section for Men’s HCP and one for Ladies HCP and this will order the holes by difficulty 1 being the hardest and 18 being the easiest. They will be out of order as they refer to the difficulty of the hole and not the hole itself. So you will allocate the strokes by the rating 1 first until you have used all the strokes available. In our illustration above this would mean that you would give a stroke on 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 &10 according to the handicap chart

Keeping track of your handicap, and using a handicap system, will help make the game fair play in a lot of golf matches, when playing against other opponents.

 If you belong to a golf course, they should have a system in place to use for tournament play, which is recognized by most golf courses and golf associations.

If you click on the links in my resource box you will find more information to help you with golf and your handicap.