Golf handicap calculator

Turn each round into a gross differential: your score minus the scratch rating, times 113, divided by the slope. Shoot 92 off tees with a scratch rating of 70.1 and a slope of 124, and that’s 21.9 × 113 ÷ 124 = 20.0. Your handicap is the average of your best 8 differentials from your last 20 rounds, to one decimal place. Fewer than 20 rounds? The table below says how many count.

The table clubs use, and the app too:

Your 18-hole score, with any blow-up hole counted as net double bogey: par, plus two, plus the shots you get on that hole. Before you’ve got a handicap, count a bad hole as par plus five. Played Stableford? Your score is 36 minus your points, plus your daily handicap, plus par.

Multiply your handicap by the slope rating of your tees and divide by 113. Add the scratch rating minus par. Multiply by 0.93, then by the Consistency Factor: 0.9986 for men, 1.0483 for women. Round to the nearest whole number, a half going up. Off 14.2 on tees with a slope of 128 and a scratch rating of 71.3, par 72: 14.2 × 128 ÷ 113 = 16.08, plus (71.3 − 72) makes 15.38, and × 0.93 × 0.9986 is 14.29. You play off 14.

The 0.93 evens out the field. Better golfers are more consistent, so without it the higher handicaps would win more than their share of comps. The Consistency Factor goes a step further: men’s scores swing more than women’s, so men’s daily handicaps come down a touch (× 0.9986) and women’s go up (× 1.0483). Both are in the Australian formula, and both are in this one.

How much harder a set of tees plays for a bogey golfer than for a scratch golfer. 113 is average, and they run from 55 to 155. The higher the slope, the more shots you get.

What a scratch golfer should shoot off those tees. Outside Australia it’s called the course rating. When it’s above par you get the difference back as shots, and when it’s under par you give it up.

On the daily handicap chart at the club, usually on the clubhouse wall, with the slope and scratch rating for each set of tees, men’s and women’s. Plenty of clubs put it on their website too.

Your handicap is how well you play on a course of average difficulty. Your daily handicap is the shots you get off today’s tees, and it’s the one that goes on the card.

It’s the number the Stableford calculator and the golf scorecard ask for.

Through a golf club. Play three 18-hole rounds (your club may count two nines as one), and your handicap is worked out from them. After that it updates with every round you put in. This calculator is a guide to the same maths, not an official handicap.

Halve your handicap and use the nine-hole slope, scratch rating and par. The 0.93 and the Consistency Factor still apply, and it usually comes out about half your 18-hole number. Your shots go on the nine’s hardest holes.

Tap the + first. A plus daily handicap gives shots back to the course, starting with stroke index 18. Halves round toward scratch: +0.5 plays off scratch and +1.5 off +1.

Plenty of crews don’t have one. On Tour works out an On Tour Handicap from the rounds you play together, with the same table as this calculator, from your third round on. It isn’t an official handicap, but it’s an honest one, and the app turns it into a daily handicap at tee-off.

Yes. The app works out your On Tour Handicap from your rounds with the same table, capping the blow-up holes for you, and everyone’s daily handicap at tee-off with the same formula, from the tees’ own ratings.