Golf Report

By Bill Hazel

A quick note to start: As Hilton Head has apparently been transformed into a tropical rainforest, please be mindful of where you are driving your carts. Driving through saturated turf can really do a lot of damage – and we have some holes (like 13 and 16 on Robbers and 1 and 17 on Barony) that are frequently saturated. As mentioned in April, handicaps are a great way to create fair competition among golfers of varying skill levels – and you should keep your handicap current if you play in tournaments. How exactly are handicaps calculated? After looking at the USGA rules, I can say that they are convoluted to a point where accountants or lawyers could empathize. Every player has a handicap index which should be on the same scale as players who play elsewhere – regardless of course difficulty. This is done by factoring in course difficulty (slope) when determining a player’s index. Naturally, a course’s slope rating changes depending upon which tee box is used. There is also an adjustment that can be made for playing conditions – if all scores from a course are high or low on a given day. To calculate an index a player’s “adjusted score” is modified by the relative difficulty of the course and potentially the playing conditions to create a “score differential”. For most players, the lowest eight of the last twenty 18-hole score differentials are used to create the handicap index. Two 9-hole postings would be combined to create an 18-hole score. There are additional rules for incomplete rounds (completing 7-13 holes means posting a 9-hole score and 14 or more holes means posting an 18-hole score. Pretty exciting so far? Remember an adjusted score limits the maximum score per hole you can use. The limit is double bogey plus whatever your handicap may be for that hole. For example, if my handicap was 18, I would have one stroke handicap per hole. Therefore, my maximum adjusted score would be 6, 7, or 8 depending if it were a par 3, 4 or 5. If my handicap was 1 (pure fiction), I could take double bogey plus 1 only on the number one handicap hole – for all other holes I would be limited to double bogey. Is that it? Of course not. If you post a score much lower than your average, then an extra point or two will be deducted for your index (“exceptional score”). There are also rules to slow down how quickly your index rises if you start posting higher scores. Your score can also be designated a “competition score” but that really doesn’t change anything – just that the handicap police can see if there is a noticeable difference between your regular scores and your scores during tournaments. After saying all of that, my recommendation would be to get the GHIN application for your smart phone, post your scores within the app, and trust the calculations. Best of luck to those that want to independently verify the numbers.