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Does your handicap travel well?

I suck pretty much the same about anywhere I play. hahahaha I think it does, but I also think it helps I don't have a "home" course, so I'm always playing different places around.
 
Yes.
My home course, while not especially long, is very tight and has very small greens that can be demanding and lighting fast.

Most other courses I visit are more forgiving and my handicap can yield some pretty decent scores, even on a course I’ve just played for the first time.
 
Yes, as I play quite a bit of courses regularly but I’m typically hot and cold in general so it’s still a crap shoot.
 
It’s usually a toss up. My home course is shorter and more narrow so I play a lot of irons off the tee. When I play an open desert style course where I can hit driver and not get into a bunch of trouble, I’m usually a couple shots better. If I play a longer course that’s narrow so I play less driver and have longer approach shots, it’s usually a couple shots worse than my handicap.
 
Cap travels fairly well. My home course is a bit tougher than most of my away courses so I usually do a bit better away, but then it always depends on the game I brought that day.
 
My HC travels exceptionally well. My home course is pretty difficult and very narrow target golf with ridiculous greens. So when I play another course it seems very easy. The funny thing is when someone new joins my club their HC goes up 99% of the time.


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I have played a fair few matches for my club, so I tend to play quite a few different courses over the course of a season, and because of that I would say that my handicap travels fairly well in general

If a course appears in our group/league for consecutive seasons, or is one I have played before, I can potentially score a bit better just due to familiarity of the course, but even when playing a course for the first time I tend to focus more than I might do at my home course
 
My scores at my home course are generally lower than scores at other courses. 80% of my yearly rounds are played at my home course.

I’m very relaxed and comfortable there and very familiar with what club to hit, what line to take, where to miss, how the putt will break, green speeds, bunker firmness, etc.

Furthermore our greens are small which means a center of green target is usually going to be good and if you miss the green you will have a relatively short chip shot.

Even playing a different tee box at my home course presents some challenges. What line to take off the tee, what club to hit off the tee for example.

But, when I play at other courses, especially for the first time, there is a lot to learn. You might be playing with people you don’t know which makes it harder for me to relax. Pace of play might be different. Yardages and target lines are not familiar. Green speeds might be different. Greens might be very large or have more or less undulation. Length of rough or type of grass might be different. Elevation and humidity might cause your club distances to change. Firmness or softness of greens and fairways might be different resulting in less or more green holding ability, more or less roll out and requiring different types of shots to be played.

I admire those people that can shoot the same score regardless of course and part of my 6 month plan working with my coach is improving on this aspect of my game.
 
I think that my handicap travels okay. I generally am very confident around the greens and have a good GIR rate 150 yards and in. With that said, if the course is narrow or has a lot of trouble left, that is where I struggle.
 
Yeah but only because I only play a fraction of my rounds at my "home" course.
 
My handicap travels as well as it could given the golfer that created said cap.

I spread my rounds over a lot a different courses. So even if I claim a home course, I play that one well under 40% of my rounds.

I travel for golf. So I get to see a lot of courses. From fancy to goat tracks.

The common thread…the volitile golfer that is playing them.
 
My club's rating and slope is 74 145. OB everywhere on almost every hole. Playing anywhere else feels like cheating, but I don't do it much.
 
My home course is in really rough condition and probably the worst (or close to the worst) within a 100 miles. It has 6 holes including a par 3 with overgrown trees that can be a nightmare for anyone who curves the ball one way or the other because you have no room at all to work it off the tees. Pitching is extremely difficult unless you bump the ball on to some tuft of grass. Bump and run shots are almost impossible at times on most holes because the perimeter areas around the greens are real soggy for 2-3 days after a substantial rain. If you can play my home course in the 70's then I'd say that you are a pretty decent player.

I'll easily score 2-3 shots better almost any where's else in my area. None the less, I will sorely miss it when the city bulldozes it in the next year or so.
 
tahoebum said:
It travels well because my current club has very sloped, fast greens that make putting and chipping much more of a challenge.

I've played 13 home rounds since my club opened 2.5 weeks ago, and my average differential for those 13 rounds is 3.87. I've played 11 away(4 on new to me courses) rounds this year sporadically in Florida and Arizona, and my average differential for all those rounds is 1.58, and if you take the four best of those 11 rounds, it would average to a 0.075 differential.

It has been the same since joining my club in 2018; the more I play at home, the higher my index goes. :LOL: Luckily, they are doing a renovation this summer and two of the most difficult greens are being replaced completely with much tamer slopes.
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If this is widespread I'm surprised this doesn't trigger a new rating for your home course. Seems the system should have enough data to automate ratingcourses these days.
 
Generally speaking yes. Sure, we may get comfortable at home and have certain "local" knowledge of spots to avoid/best angles to take etc., but you still have to execute the shot. For comparison, I always thought that being a member of a course would be boring because you're playing the same course over and over, but it's still golf. No two rounds will ever be the same.
If you travel and play a slightly more difficult course, the slope and course rating should factor this into your handicap calculation. I try to play boring golf - find the fairway, don't fire at pins, etc. FIR and GIRs are my objective every round I play. Sure, it doesn't always work out, but at least I try.
 
This is an issue, and I made sure my handicap includes rounds at about five courses.
 
My handicap doesn't travel too badly. That's one of the reasons that I keep playing with my travel group. We play a variety of courses in our area (usually within
a 45 minute drive), and not only do I like the variety (not to mention the beauty!) of the different course we play, but I think it keeps my game a little sharper than
if I just played my home course. My home course (where I've played for 55-60 years!), while it's nice, and I love the place, is probably the easiest course of all
the courses I play all year. That may have something to do with the fact that I've played there so long that I practically know every blade of grass!

I play with the travel group once a week and with a buddy on my home course once a week. I can usually score two to four strokes better on the home course
than I can at the away courses, for the reasons I mentioned above. I could definitely save a couple of hundred bucks a year by just buying a membership at the
home course and playing there exclusively, but I think my overall game would suffer. I'm only 76 now.....maybe when I get OLD I'll do that, LOL! :D
 
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Not really sure right now. It has been a couple of years since I have traveled to play. It previously held up pretty well for the most part.
 


Maybe on one other course in the area. I can hit out of trees and tall grass. I can't hit out of water - that's usually a penalty stroke + $2.75.
 
Been playing different courses and I have noticed that my score tends to be in the same range as my home course.
 
I think it's ok, I play a lot of different courses and scores are generally the same at them all. Never know tho 🤣😳
 
If I get play on a better/difficult course, like Atkinson, Breakfast Hill and yesterday at Butterbrook I find that my handicap does not travel well at all and this is really annoying. I have to find a way to play these courses better. Started out with two pars yesterday at Butterbrook, we started on the 10th hole, and then it was just messy. In too many bunkers, a couple of 3 putts, a skanked shot here and there. Tee box game was good.

It was also really hot and humid and it poured out for 10 minutes or so at one point and then was even more humid.

This is something I need to improve upon, along with lots of other stuff
 
rlefig said:
If I get play on a better/difficult course, like Atkinson, Breakfast Hill and yesterday at Butterbrook I find that my handicap does not travel well at all and this is really annoying. I have to find a way to play these courses better. Started out with two pars yesterday at Butterbrook, we started on the 10th hole, and then it was just messy. In too many bunkers, a couple of 3 putts, a skanked shot here and there. Tee box game was good.

It was also really hot and humid and it poured out for 10 minutes or so at one point and then was even more humid.

This is something I need to improve upon, along with lots of other stuff
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This is one reason I DON'T join the local course....it's a course I know like the back of my hand, since I've played there for 40 years (!) and even worked there as a
summer job for 20 of those years. It's nice, but it's pretty wide open with smallish greens (so chipping there is easy), and I generally score well there. So, I belong
to a travel group that plays a rotation of 6-8 courses of varying difficulty. Most are tougher than the club I mentioned above. This keeps my handicap fairly
accurate I think, and I'll continue to travel and pay greens fees until I get TOO OLD (I'm 76 now, LOL) to care any more....
 
As a 16.4 on 18birdies I'd say at this stage probably not. I played a fair number of rounds last year at the local goat track that (IMO) is rated harder than it actually is. I've only played one 9 hole round there this year, and really have no desire to do so despite the proximity. The other local course I play semi-frequently is pretty open and thus not as penal for me (given my issues off the tee). That leads to my cap being as low as it is, and thus not traveling well. You put me on a course where a wayward tee shot is OB rather than one fairway over or in a position that requires a punch out and my score can rise very quickly.
 
It has been more consistent this year so feeling confident I could step onto any course and shoot very close to it of below.
 
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