Handicap - Does It Tell Your Golf Story

JB

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I will keep this brief (for me) rather than write a novel here. I have been speaking with someone about indexes and he brought up a very interesting point about how well they tell the story about a golfer. Case in point, this gentleman travelled the country and played to a 2 index. Could go quite low and some days would go the other way. Normally, according to him, he kept the ball in front of him and played to his competition.

We started discussing indexes and how they worked to tell the story. Speaking of golfers that travel, "course handicaps" and so much more. I like to think my index tells the story about my game. I play to a 5 right now, but have been as low as a .9 and as high as an 8.6 in the last 3 years. Nothing really changes that for the most part. It does not seem to matter the course, the location or anything else, it all seems to stay about the same.

I asked the gentleman why he felt as though for some it told the story and for others it was a big question mark. He then proceeded to explain why (in his opinion) its different for every golfer and he said it almost always comes down to short game and keeping the ball in play off the tee.

"JB, its simple, if a golfer keeps the ball in play off the tee and has a decent wedge game and putter, the index will tell the story no matter where they are. Those that struggle with those areas, will find their game travels not as well. Now I would be fooling if I did not mention managing the golf course and eliminating big mistakes, but both of those things [CAN] lead back to the two areas I am discussing."

It got me thinking about whether it was all that simple. Could these two things really show the index? So I started a little email survey to three golf clubs and spoke to about 85 golfers. I am working on gathering data, but so far, the gentleman I spoke with is dead on as far as what I am seeing. Those that keep it in play off the tee and putt well are traveling with their game more than those that struggle in those areas.

So that leads to this thread. Do you think your handicap index tells the story of your golf game? Or do you think it is in some ways "artificial" because of these factors.

Toughness of courses you are playing (ratings)
Some very good rounds mixed in that keep you low
Playing better golf at harder courses

It also tends to lean back to what an index really is. Many seem to still believe your handicap is your scoring average when in actuality it is your scoring potential. So does it tell your story? You tell us.
 
I dont know if my index tells my story. I know that my struggle has been off the tee, but some of the courses I play allow for errent tee shots with very little OB and fairways that line up. I know for sure that if I went to a course with a lot of trouble left my HCP would be higher.

I think that I am getting better, and my HCP is showing that, but I don't hit the driver as straight as I would like too so that would go along the lines of what the gentleman you talked to said, I tend to lose 2 or so balls OB each round.
 
I am finding that my scores are about the same across the board. I also tend to shoot the same from 6000 yards to 6500 yards. Traveling never really seems to hurt me.

Before this year, my game did not travel very well at all, but that has changed recently.
 
I struggle with this question, to be honest.

By virtue of the rating at my course, I feel like I have a lower index than I deserve. I think that putting me on a course with a lower slope would knock it up at least a couple points, if not more. That said, I went to Myrtle and shot a number that falls right into the index range I normally see at home. Typically, I can keep the ball in play decently and scramble pretty well. I feel like course management and wedges have done more to drop my index than actually being good at golf.

Short answer - I don't know.
 
Generally speaking, I would strongly agree with his opinion. You keep the ball in play off the tee with a respectable short game, you will score just fine.

To answer your questions:

I previously thought that my handicap of 9 was somewhat artificial due to having a home course where 90% of my rounds are played and it is a relatively easy course from a ratings perspective. I have recently discovered that through a bunch of play and practice, that my handicap actually travels halfway respectably so I am now of the belief that it is not as artificial as I previously thought it was. I had the opportunity to play some tougher courses and came out pretty well.

I don't have a ton of "one off" rounds that keep me low, I can typically shoot around the same minus a few blowup rounds here and there.

While I understand the average vs potential, in my mind I still think I should be able to shoot consistently better (at least it is my goal) than course par plus my current handicap.
 
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I struggle with this question, to be honest.

By virtue of the rating at my course, I feel like I have a lower index than I deserve. I think that putting me on a course with a lower slope would knock it up at least a couple points, if not more. That said, I went to Myrtle and shot a number that falls right into the index range I normally see at home. Typically, I can keep the ball in play decently and scramble pretty well. I feel like course management and wedges have done more to drop my index than actually being good at golf.

Short answer - I don't know.

This is the part he was discussing with me. For some that play regularly (home course) with a very tough rating, you could show scores that are not indicative of what you would shoot there without familiarity.
 
I would have to say that I think my handicap is in some ways artificial, well mainly in my putting.

I play the same courses quite a bit, and there aren't that many golf courses in the city where I live compared to other cities. I would say that at about 4 of the courses here in town, I could probably predict how every putt you are going to hit is going to break before I really even look at the putt. When you play the courses as much as I have, you just memorize this type of stuff.

I would say that for my handicap range I'm probably in the middle as far as a putter goes. When I travel to different courses that I've played maybe once or twice or not at all, I struggle. Mainly due to the fact that I have to focus more on the reads than I do at the courses I play in my home town. Here in town I usually only have to focus on the pace because I'm already confident in the read.

I'm not sure if this is quite what you were looking for, but I would imagine my "traveling handicap" is a good 2 or 3 strokes higher than my handicap here in town.
 
I have to tend to agree with the gentleman, if you keep the ball in front of you and chip/putt your index will travel well. It's easy to learn to play a specific course and know where not to hit it. But that mind set doesn't travel to less frequenetly played courses. But I will take it a step further with differing conditions, terrian and climates. I have found that these factors can also dictate how one plays when they leave the confines of their own course or familiar courses.

Keeping the ball in the fiarway and being able to convert when you miss a green more often then not does travel well and therefore the index would tell the story.
 
my handicap tells my story. I struggle with accuracy off the tee and with my short game. On a given day I can shoot low 80s or i can shoot low 100s. My GHIN is currently an 11.5 but that is due to a "hot streak" of play. I would say a fair handicap would be in around the 15 range. I know the areas I need to work on and my goal is single digits in the GHIN system next summer.
 
I dont know if my index tells my story. I know that my struggle has been off the tee, but some of the courses I play allow for errent tee shots with very little OB and fairways that line up. I know for sure that if I went to a course with a lot of trouble left my HCP would be higher.

I think that I am getting better, and my HCP is showing that, but I don't hit the driver as straight as I would like too so that would go along the lines of what the gentleman you talked to said, I tend to lose 2 or so balls OB each round.

I agree with all of this, and feel like my course (131/132 slope rating) is by no means a difficult course and that my index really reflects how I play there since most of my rounds take place. Then I go to a new course or just one I hadnt played in awhile and shoot well above my index, typically due to just some stupid shots, but then at new courses the unfamiliarity for me ends up costing me a few strokes usually as well.
 
I dont have a home course, and my handicap is based off of playing a different course every week, sometimes two per week. I would like to think my game travels well, but the different courses I play each week I have played many, many times, and while they are not a "home course", I do know the layouts quite well.

Most people look at Handicaps as where people will score, or what they should score, rather than what it is meant to be. There is a reason it's for your potential to score, as it is an average based off of your BEST rounds of late.

I hovered around 12-13 hdcp for the longest time, and I felt that was due to me having a massive slice and not being able to keep the ball in play. Two things have helped me break 80 over the past few months, and those were really working on my course management off the tee (as well as working on my driver swing) and putting practice. At one point, I was averaging about 36 putts per 18 holes. Over the past 6 months, I have been averaging 31 putts per 18 holes, that there shows a huge difference in scoring.

I think my handicap is a definite story of my game. I played equipment that didnt fit me for years, and my scores were steady in the high 80s and low 90s. Find equipment that fit my game a bit better, keep the ball in front of me rather than in the woods, make a few more putts here and there, and the scores dropped a bit.
 
This is the part he was discussing with me. For some that play regularly (home course) with a very tough rating, you could show scores that are not indicative of what you would shoot there without familiarity.

In honesty, I don't feel like an 13.5 index player, but then again, I don't really know what a 13.5 index player really is. I know that the round I put up in MB gave me a 15.0 differential. I tried to manage that course the same way I do mine at home. I've played both better and worse than that this year both at home and at other places. Honestly, I have no clue. It's confusing and I don't know if I'm going to bother with an index next year. I won't be at the same club due to finances, so not sure if there's really a point.
 
I generally keep the ball in play off the tee, and I have been hitting my wedges better than ever. My handicap has come down almost 2 strokes this year. Wedge play and putting are the key.
 
Fascinating thread and Im not really sure what my answer is to be honest. I feel like I can play extremely better then I do but I dont. I guess my HCP tells the story of how inconsistent my game really is.
 
Toughness of courses you are playing (ratings)
Some very good rounds mixed in that keep you low
Playing better golf at harder courses

It also tends to lean back to what an index really is. Many seem to still believe your handicap is your scoring average when in actuality it is your scoring potential. So does it tell your story? You tell us.

I'm currently sitting at a 1.5 index after having played 65 rounds this year. On my best days I can shoot near par, but I have never broken -2 at my home course, which plays at 71.8 132 from the tees I normally play. I rarely play at courses that aren't my own and I believe that my playing experience at my home course reduces my handicap by at least a couple strokes. I don't scramble terribly well and believe that consistency is a far greater asset than recovery. I think GHIN lends too much to that concept with only using 10 of the last 20.

Really really interesting discussion though. Looking forward to the conversation.
 
I do think index tells a story about the golfer, to an extent. Like you mentioned in the past 3 years your number has fluctuated a good bit. I'm willing to bet those fluctuations can be attributed to where you were playing, what you were playing, and most importantly how you were playing. I think a good many golfers get a home course handicap. What I mean by that is they play the same course every week or multiple times a week. Over time they learn to score on that particular course; where they can miss at, what club to take off this tee, how the greens break etc etc.

Now I won't say that some of those handicaps don't travel because we've seen time and time again that some do in fact travel very well. I've got a friend whose home course is very difficult and we he comes south for the season his scores stay about the same despite moving around to different courses. Conversely another playing partner doesn't bother keeping a handicap during the winter because his scores are consistently several strokes higher then what he typically shoots on his home course.

Keeping the ball in front of you is obviously paramount to carding a decent score but I do think it goes deeper than that. I can have a great day of keeping the ball on line and still not score to my liking due a multitude of reasons, but at that point it is splitting hairs. As it relates to me, there are days when I really struggle and some courses where I really struggle at. Typically I still score in a general window, regardless if I'm at a course for the first time or a course I've played many times. I try and manage my game in a fashion that rewards smart golf, I don't take silly chances very often and I try and play the hole backwards from the middle of the green.

All in all I think my handicap tells the story pretty succinctly but also the three factors you listed can have a big impact on how the story unfolds. If I played TwinEagles or TPC Previso Bay in Naples constantly I'm certain my handicap would be higher because the courses are tough. However I know that that handicap would travel very well to easier courses around the area provided my skill level didn't vary drastically.

Certainly an interesting discussion and a rather thought provoking one at that.
 
I would describe my normal game by saying I keep the ball in play off the tee, decent iron play, good wedge game at times, decent putter. So with those I think most of the time my game travels fairly well. If I look at the last year of golf for me, which has been the most work I've ever put in to my game due to 2 Morgan Cups, I look at the places I've played. I've had 2 different home courses that I've played at, played at Grand Cypress a handfull of times, played 2 courses at Reunion, True Blue, Caledonia, and Westchase. I would say that majority of those rounds were good to typical rounds for me. In that span I've had a low round of 76 and a high of low 90's(4 days in a row to be exact). But I would say most have been between 80-85.

Rounds I struggled in:
2nd round at GC when I didn't eat anything till the 13th hole. My putting was still good, but my short game and tee game was not.
All 4 rounds in Westchase: Game was very rusty in December, tee game was awful and so was everything else.

So do I normally think that my hdcp travels, maybe. I do think it travels better now than it did prior to last years MC. Currently my GHIN has me at an 9.1. I've been as low as an 8.8 and as high as an 11 this year.
 
Another interesting thought on my personal index. My course has a few holes that are very tight and are 'need to hit' but for the most part, the fairways are quite wide. This translates very poorly to other courses where I can't just swing away on a handful of holes. I can get into a bad swing (saw this when I played with THP buddies in Indy) where I had a bad tee shot and it messed with me for the next 10+ holes.
 
Well, I'm not sure how to answer. I play a tough home course that forces you to keep the ball in front of you and in play because there is no such thing as missing a fairway. I think I'm long enough, and straight enough off the tee to play pretty much any course, and my iron play is fine, but I don't have a great short game right now.

I guess since your index is your scoring potential, that its about right. I figure I could show up on any given day and possibly shoot my HC at most courses.
 
really enjoying reading everyone's responses, seem to be getting opinions all across the board
 
I'm enjoying this thread but I don't know how to read my side of things: my last 4 rounds on the same course have been 85, 97, 81, 79 and I would say the #1 difference in the blow up round was wild off the tee and not keeping the ball in play. For the 81 I had indifferent but not horrific ball-striking and only 26 putts. The 79, I was 9 GIRs. I feel like when I play against someone and they see my hcp that they shouldn't be surprised at any outcome!

I do believe that I'd be a single digit if I stayed in the fairway a reasonable distance down the fairway so keeping it in play and not wasting too many short-game shots seems to make sense as the key to having a traveling game.
 
A couple years ago my once a year playing partner in a statewide tournament questioned the validity of my handicap because she said I mostly played at my home course which is rated pretty easy compared to hers. I told her I felt it was harder to get a low handicap because my course is rated so low and I felt it was accurate. I think I shot 3 strokes above my handicap in that tournament. To make a long story short, she got me pondering and I started playing a lot of other courses and I always entered my score no matter how good or bad I played. I took quite a few months off from golf this year because of health problems but was surprised when I returned and have played very close to the handicap that I had last year. I even played at a course new to me and shot 79 (par 72) which was below my handicap. I also have days where I can't do anything right and shoot well into the 90's. I think my handicap accurately reflects my "potential" which is definitely not to be confused with an average which I think would be a good bit higher since it's only looking at the lowest 10 scores out of the last 20.

I will add to this and say my handicap actually improved since that tournament almost 2 years ago. I think playing many different courses has made me a better golfer.
 
My handicap does not travel very well to be honest. I'm around 7-9 on my home course and about a 12-14 on a course where I only play once a year. As to why this is, I'm not sure. I always assumed most golfers don't play as well away form their home course. For my game, course knowledge seems to matter a great deal.
 
To have a more intelligent post in this thread, I have to say that I completely agree with the gentleman.

My handicap last year came from my old course which I rarely strayed from. I always played from the back tees (6500) because the slope rating was higher and I would shoot the same scores from either tee box. When I would go to other courses, I would struggle a whole lot because I didn't know how to manage a course other than my own. When I moved to NC last summer, my handicap dropped pretty good and I had to learn how to play different courses. Also, I live around a bunch of THP people and I tend to get out to different courses because of that and it has taught me how to manage a strange course much better than I had before. My handicap now is very similar to what it was early last summer, but I feel that I am twice the player than I was back then.
 
Yes. Its that simple. Keep the ball in the fairway and be good in side of 100 yards and your index is low. I know the main thing keeping my index from being 2 strokes lower is my tee game.
 
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