How to Determine Your Golf Handicap

Determining your golf handicap is a necessity if you plan to play competitively. The math is pretty simple, but calculating your score does require a bit of legwork — at least five rounds of golf on a certified course. Exactly how many rounds you must play will depend on the competition or club requirement.

Instructions

1. Play at least five rounds of 18 holes, and a maximum of 20 rounds. If you play more than 20 rounds, your oldest scores are dropped as new ones are added.

2. For each round, find the score differential. To do this, you will need to know three things: your score, the course rating (the par for the entire course) and the slope rating. The Differential = (your score - course rating) x 113/slope rating.

3. Using the score differentials you calculated in Step 2, add together five to 10 differentials and divide that figure by the number of differentials. Multiply that number by 0.96. The result is your handicap.

   You must add together at least five differentials. If you play 10 rounds or more, you will use your 10 lowest differentials to determine your handicap.

References

• United States Golf Association: USGA Handicap Formula