Handicaps
How handicaps work, with calculators that show their math.
- Guide
What Is a Golf Handicap? Explained Simply
A golf handicap is a head start: it gives a less experienced golfer extra strokes so they can play a fair game against anyone. Roughly, it's how many strokes over par you can shoot on a good day on a course of average difficulty. It comes from your best recent rounds, and lower is better: a 5 is a strong player, and many newer golfers are in the 20s or 30s.
- Calculator
Golf handicap calculator
Enter your adjusted gross score, Course Rating and Slope Rating for each round. The calculator works out each Score Differential and your estimated Handicap Index the way the World Handicap System does.
- Calculator
Course handicap calculator
Your Course Handicap is the number of strokes you get on a particular set of tees. Enter your Handicap Index, the tees' Course Rating, Slope Rating and par, and pick your format to also get your Playing Handicap.
- Explainer
How golf handicaps work
Your Handicap Index measures your ability on a course of standard difficulty. Your Course Handicap turns it into strokes for the tees you're playing, and your Playing Handicap adjusts that for the format.
- Explainer
What is a Score Differential?
A Score Differential is one round's score measured against how hard the course was, scaled to a course of standard difficulty. Your Handicap Index is the average of your lowest ones.
- Explainer
Net double bogey: the most a hole can count
For your handicap, no hole counts more than a net double bogey, which is par + 2 + any handicap strokes you get on that hole. Before you have a Handicap Index, the most a hole counts is par + 5.
- Explainer
Course Rating and Slope Rating explained
Course Rating is what a scratch golfer is expected to shoot from a set of tees. Slope Rating says how much harder those tees play for an average golfer than for a scratch golfer, on a scale where 113 is standard.