How handicaps are altered, and the Handicap History displays.

The following is an abridged discussion of handicaps. You can view the full rules etc. at Golf Australia’s web site at http://www.golfaustralia.org.au/default.aspx?s=courserating

Each player’s handicap is altered after each round. The amount of the alteration is determined by the player’s handicap and the score for the round.

Firstly, we need to explain a few terms. The first if gross score. For a stroke round, this is simply the number of strokes that the player recorded. For a stableford or par round, we need to consider the par for the course.

For a stableford round, the gross score is:
course par + player’s handicap + 36 – stableford points
ie if a player with a handicap of 10 has 39 points on a par 72 course, then their gross score is:
72 + 10 + 36 – 39 = 79

For a par round, the gross score is:
course par + player’s handicap – par score
ie if the same player has a par score of -3, then their gross score is:
72 + 10 + 3 = 85

The next term is differential, which is the amount by which the player’s gross score was above or below the CCR.

Using the 2 cases above, with a CCR of 71, then the differential for the stableford example would be 8, and the differential for the par example would be 14. In other words, with a CCR of 71 and a course par of 72, you need to score 37 points in stableford or +1 in par to play to your handicap, so our stableford example is 2 better than handicap and the par example is 4 worse than handicap.

Next we have buffer zone. The buffer zone differs according to the player’s handicap, and is shown in the tables below. If a player’s differential equals his or her handicap, or is more than the handicap and within the buffer zone, then the player’s handicap is not changed. So, if a player with a handicap of 16 (buffer zone = 2), had a differential of 16, 17 or 18, then that player’s handicap does not change.

Lastly, we have adjustment, which is:
0 if the adjustment is within the buffer zone,
-1 if the adjustment is above the handicap and outside of the buffer zone, or
the number of strokes by which the adjustment is better than the player’s handicap

So, in our stableford example, the adjustment is 2, and the adjustment for the par example is -1.

The amount of the alteration to the player’s handicap is shown in the tables below, one for Men’s handicaps, and one for Ladies handicaps.

Men’s Handicap Alteration Table

Ladies Handicap Alteration Table

For Men’s handicaps, when a player is in the first category (ie handicap of 4.4 or better), and the player has a differential more than 5 strokes higher than his handicap, his exact handicap is increased by 0.2. His handicap is also increased by 0.2 for any non-returned card.

If our sample player had an exact handicap of 10.0, then the alteration for the stableford round would be -0.4, ie the new handicap would be 9.6. The alteration for the par round would be +0.1, ie the new handicap would be 10.1. Note that exact handicaps are recorded to 1 decimal point, ie 9.6, or 17.2 or 21.5. We always play from a playing handicap which is a whole number, and this is the nearest whole number to the exact handicap, with 0.5 bring rounded up, ie the playing handicaps for 9.6, 17.2 and 21.5 are 10, 17 and 22. (There is an exception for Plus handicaps – see below).

When a player’s handicap is to be reduced so that is goes from a higher category to a lower category, it is reduced at the rate appropriate to the higher category only so far as this brings the handicap into the lower category. Then the rest of the reduction is reduced at the rate of the lower category. For example, if we have a men’s player on
13.2 and then have a round with an adjustment of 6, then the reduction is in 2 steps:
13.2 – (3 x .3) (ie -0.9) = 12.3
12.3 – (3 x .2) (ie -0.6) = 11.7
ie the reduction starts as 0.3 per stroke, but as soon as the reduction take the player into the lower category, then the reduction becomes 0.2 per stroke.


Plus Handicaps

Men may have a plus handicap, ie a handicap which is better than scratch (or zero). There are several stipulations for a plus handicap, but the one which affects how the handicaps are altered is that to have a handicap of +1 (for example), the exact handicap must be +1 or better, ie the normal rounding of 0.5 and above does not apply.


Handicap History

The handicap history on our web site displays up to the last 20 rounds for each player. This can be reached from the history link from the Men’s Handicap and Ladies Handicap pages. The handicaps in the history page are the exact handicaps at the start of the round. The exact handicap at the end of the round is shown on the main handicap page (and can be calculated from the last round using the discussion above).