grinter001
4 minutes
In wishing about the direction of your handicap there are two kinds of golfers: 1) The ones who want their handicap to go down to show how good they are and 2) the ones who want their handicap to go up to have a greater advantage when competing. In both cases it is important to understand what impacts the golf handicap.
The USGA handicap system intents to calculate the potential ability of the golfer and not the average ability like many believe. Therefore, it only considers the best 10 scores of the last 20 rounds. Then it averages those 10 rounds and after multiplying by 96% you get your handicap.
The below table shows what happens when you have less that 20 scores recorded.
So if it only considers the 10 best scores out of the last 20 rounds, what happens with your other 10 rounds?
Nothing.
Those rounds are not even considered. So, if your 10th best score is a 98, it doesn't matter if you played 99 or 140. It won't do anything to your index. Only the shame.
The logic, like we explained before is that to get the potential ability you want to consider only the best rounds. Also, bad rounds are very erratic, but good rounds are fairly stable, which makes it more predictable.
Yes, it is a big misconception. So next time someone says something like - "well at least this score is going to increase my handicap", don't tell them anything if you don't want to, but know that he doesn't really know what he is saying.
For more details about the Golf Handicap Formula you can refer to our previous article How to Calculate your Golf Handicap or to the USGA Handicap Manual.
Please let us know if you have any questions about this post or about anything related to the handicap system and we will be more than happy to help.
Enjoy your Golf!
