Handicaps, shown
Shots are where a golf trip falls out. score70 works them the way the World Handicap System sets them out, off the course you are standing on, and shows its working.
Your index becomes a course handicap
Off the slope, rating and par of the tees you are standing on, rounded to the nearest shot. Enter them once per course.
Course handicap = handicap index × (slope ÷ 113) + (course rating − par)
Carya: 15.2 × (140 ÷ 113) = 18.83, + 1.2 = 20.03, so Sam Hartley plays off 20.
Why is my course handicap not my index?
The index travels; the course handicap is what that index is worth on this course off these tees. A 15.2 is 20 at Carya (slope 140, rating 73.2) and would be less on an easier set of tees.
A match is played off the lowest handicap in it
The lowest player plays off scratch and everyone else gets a percentage of the gap up to him: 100% in singles, 90% in a four-ball.
20 − 10 = 10. 90% of 10 = 9. They play as 0 and 9.
100% is singles. 90% is the four-ball. Both are the % of the gap, not of the handicap.
Why is the percentage on the gap and not on each handicap?
Take ninety per cent of twenty and you get eighteen, which still has Sam nine clear of a man off ten and cuts the lowest player’s shots to nothing he ever had. Taking it off the gap is what keeps the match the match.
Does a four-ball cut my stableford too?
No. Stableford and net birdies use all twenty of Sam’s shots in the very round the four-ball gives him nine. The individual competition never inherits a team format’s allowance.
A points game is played off your own handicap
A shamble, a 1-2-3, a mystery player and a Russian Stableford are scored in points against par, so the percentage comes off each player’s own course handicap and nobody is cut to the lowest.
85% of 20 = 17. 85% of 10 = 8.5, so Ellis plays off 9.
85% is the shamble. 100% is a 1-2-3, yellow ball, mystery player, Russian Stableford and blind pairs.
Why not the gap here as well?
In a match, taking the same shots off both sides changes nothing. In stableford it changes everything, because points are counted against par and stop at nought: score a shamble off the lowest man in it and the twenty-four handicapper posts almost nothing all day.
Why 85 for a shamble and 100 for the rest?
Eighty-five is the recommended allowance for the best two of four cards, which is what a shamble is scored as. A mystery player counts one random card, blind pairs adds two full cards, a Russian Stableford multiplies so any cut bites twice, and a 1-2-3 is four ordinary cards with a counting rule on top — all start from the full number, and the organiser can type less on any round.
Shots go on by stroke index
One at stroke index 1, then 2, on down until they run out. Nine shots is the nine hardest holes, and no guessing on the tee.
Hole number above, stroke index in the cell. Butter is a shot.
What if I get more than eighteen?
Everyone gets one on every hole and the remainder starts again at stroke index 1. Off twenty that is two shots on stroke index 1 and 2 and one everywhere else — the pair of sixes on Sam’s card that came back as net fours.
What about a plus handicap?
A player better than scratch gives shots back, starting at the easiest hole and working down. Off +2 you hand one back at stroke index 18 and one at 17, so a par there is a net bogey. It is written +2 on his card, the way a golfer writes it, and never −2.
Cuts and gifts, for the week only
The organiser can take shots off a player or give them, in half-shot steps, for this trip and no other. The stored index is never touched.
Eighteen at Carya rather than twenty, from the same stored index of 15.2.
When does a cut take effect?
When the next round is set up. Rounds already built keep the handicaps they were built with, so a cut argued out on the Wednesday night cannot move Tuesday’s result.
Does it follow him to the next trip?
No. The adjustment sits on top of the handicap index for this trip’s rounds only, so the next trip starts clean and nobody has to remember to put it back.
That is the whole of it. Every format is scored off the same card — see the shamble for 85% of your own, or the four-ball for 90% of the gap.
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