Scotland Course and Slope Ratings
 
Course Rating
Dealing with Sandbagging
Handicapping Guidelines
18 Questions About Your Handicap
A formula for slow play and higher scores?
Andy Garcia and his Handicap
Are You Getting Strokes on the Right Holes?
Coming Soon: a New Handicap System
Figuring your own handicap
Guidelines to Handicapping
Handicap 103
Handicaps for the unhandicapped refined
Handicapping, Slope designed for enjoyment
Here comes your slope Handicap
How To Get a USGA Handicap
How Well Should You Play?
It Just Wouldn't Compute
Picking the Right Partner
Publinks Handicaps
The Jury is Out, but ESC Remains in
USGA help the handicappers - part I
USGA help the handicappers - part II
What is the meaning of Slope?
What is Your Anti-Handicap?
Why Your Handicap Will Change This Year
History of Handicapping
Junior Golfers
Pace of Play
Scramble Tournaments
Tournament Point System
World Rankings
Magazine Articles
Scotland
Other
About the Pope Of Slope
Contact
Home




Pope Of Slope

Figuring your own handicap

Sunday, July 7, 1996
By Joe Logan
Philadelphia INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Don't have an official handicap from the United States Golf Association? Want an idea of what it would be?

It's easy enough to figure out.

For golfers without handicaps, the USGA offers a formula called the ``Second-Best Score System'' as a ``simple estimator.''

Here's how to do it:

Write down your four best scores in the past 12 months from a regulation course (with par of 68 or more). Say you shot a 91, 93, 95 and 97. Select the second-best of those scores, the 93.

Now, from that second-best score of 93, subtract 70, if you're a man, giving you roughly a 23 handicap. If you're a woman, subtract 73, giving you about a 20 handicap.

If you play golf so rarely that you can come up with only one score in the previous 12 months, subtract 74, if you're a man, or 77, if you're a woman.

``It's not an official USGA handicap, but it'll give you a pretty good indication of your skill level,'' said the USGA's Dean Knuth.

Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the express written consent of Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. is expressly prohibited.

© 1998-2016 PopeOfSlope.com