| The USGA have a slightly complicated way of | | | | the more difficult the course is for bogey golfers. |
| calculating your golf handicap! If you want to work out | | | | To calculate your handicap you need your adjusted |
| your handicap then first of all you need your gross | | | | gross score. This basically means you use the number |
| scores from at least 5 rounds of golf that you have | | | | of shots you have taken going round while restricting |
| played recently. Ideally you would have scores from | | | | your scores on each hole to the maximum allowed by |
| the last 20 rounds of golf that you have played. Once | | | | the USGA's Equitable Stroke Control (ESC) guidelines. |
| you have these, you also need the Course Rating and | | | | When you have your scores, from each one take |
| the Slope Rating of the Golf Club that you played your | | | | away the course rating. Multiply this figure by 113 and |
| round at. You can normally find these on your | | | | then divide by the Slope Rating. |
| scorecard or from the golf club itself. | | | | This gives a you a figure for each round of golf you |
| The golf Course Rating is really an evaluation of the | | | | have played. The next part depends on how many |
| difficulty of a course when compared to a scratch | | | | scores you are using to calculate. To make it simple, if |
| golfer playing there. It is easy to see how it compares | | | | you are using 5 scores then just take the lowest |
| to other courses as the number is give in terms of | | | | number that you have calculated from these 5. If you |
| strokes. So you might find a slightly easier par 72 | | | | are using 20 then take the 10 lowest. If you have taken |
| course has a course rating of say 69.2 but a more | | | | 10 then take the average of those 10 figures. |
| difficult one with a rating of 74.6. | | | | Now you have one figure (either the lowest of 5 or |
| The Slope Rating is a number from 55 to 155 that | | | | the average of 10). Multiply this result by 0.96 and you |
| corresponds to a ratio which (compared to 113 being | | | | have your handicap. Round this figure up to one point |
| the average) gives the difficulty of a course when | | | | after the decimal. |
| judged on bogey golfers. The higher the Slope Index, | | | | |