In this video, Golf Monthly's Jezz Ellwood takes a detailed look at the world handicap system. He picks out the 8 most important things that every golfer needs to know. From handicap indexes to slope rating and exceptional score reductions, this video will walk you through the terms and explain how they might affect your game. What do you think of the new world handicap system?
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00:00WHS, the World Handicap System, it's here.
00:08We're all now going to be playing by the same set of handicap regulations wherever we play
00:12golf in the world.
00:13In the UK and Ireland, for example, we've been used to terms like competition scratch
00:18score, standard scratch score, buffer zones, 0.1 increases for a long time.
00:23Those have all gone.
00:24There's a whole new set of terms to get your head around to understand how this slope based
00:29system is going to work.
00:30In this video, we're going to pick out eight of what we think are the key terms to get
00:35your head around so you get a better understanding of how the new system works.
00:40Well, the most important term I think is handicap index because this is what we all have now
00:50rather than a handicap as such.
00:52There is a key difference here because the index is then used to determine how many shots
00:57you get on a given course off a given set of tees.
01:01You'll get more shots on harder courses and fewer shots on easier courses based on the
01:06slope rating which is another term we'll come on to in a minute.
01:10In the transition from the old system to the new system, it will work out your best eight
01:14scores from 20 over a two-year period.
01:17Going forward, best eight out of a rolling 20 and it will average those out.
01:22For those who didn't have 20 scores in the system when the changeover came, it will pro-rater
01:25it on the number of scores available and work out a suitable number of those to use
01:29to create your average.
01:31Handicap index is what you're going to have going forward rather than a handicap.
01:41From handicap index, we then come on to course handicap which is what you'll actually get
01:45when you play a given course and it's a factor of your handicap index, the tees you choose
01:50to play from and the slope rating from those tees.
01:54You will actually from that then get a playing handicap depending on the format being played.
01:58For example, single stroke play events are going to be 95% of your course handicap.
02:04To calculate your course handicap, and you don't have to do this because this will all
02:07be done for you, you take the slope rating of the course, divide it by the 113 average
02:15and then multiply it by your handicap index and that will give you your course handicap
02:20for the set of tees you're choosing to play from.
02:22Essentially, what you really need to know is that if slope rating is above 113, you're
02:28likely to get more shots depending on how much above it is and if it's below 113, you're
02:33likely to get fewer shots than your handicap index, but that will depend on what your handicap
02:38index is and how much above or below that 113 average the slope rating of the course
02:43you're playing that day is.
02:52Course rating is the figure that trained course assessors expect a scratch golfer to
02:57get round a golf course in and for the purposes of their calculations, they assume a scratch
03:02golfer is someone who can hit it 250 off the tee with a driver and 230 with a fairway wood
03:08in normal playing conditions.
03:10For a lady, I think those figures are 210 and 170.
03:14So the course rating will sometimes be more than the par of the course, sometimes less
03:18than the par of the course and that will depend on factors such as topography, fairway width,
03:24difficulty of holes, amount of out of bounds, factors that make one course harder than another
03:29and course assessors take all of that into account.
03:32I suppose for those of us in the UK and Ireland, it's similar to the way in which standard
03:36scratch score often was different to the par of the course one way or the other by a shot
03:41or two.
03:47The final piece of the jigsaw then to allow us to get the slope rating is the bogey rating
03:51and this is effectively the same as the course rating but for a 20 handicap male golfer or
03:5724 handicap lady golfer and they assume in the assessments there that a 20 handicap male
04:04golfer will hit it 200 with driver, 170 with a fairway wood, obviously we all know people
04:08who vary massively one way or the other from that, but that's the average ladies, the figures
04:12are 150 and 130 and the idea here is this will assess how difficult the golf course
04:18is to get round for golfers in that handicap bracket.
04:21From there we then go on to work out what the slope rating is.
04:31So now we come on to the crux of the whole system, the slope rating and this uses course
04:35rating and bogey rating to assess the relative difficulty of a golf course for good players
04:40if you like and slightly less skilled players.
04:43Now these slope ratings vary from 55 for what would be a fairly easy course up to 155 for
04:49a very difficult golf course, 113 is the key figure, it is the average against which the
04:56difficulty level of a golf course is assessed, we will come on to that a little bit more
04:59in a minute.
05:00The idea is that the harder a golf course is the more strokes a higher handicapper might
05:04need to get round on an equal basis with a lower handicapper, the difficulty level kind
05:09of goes in a curve like that rather than like that and if you want an example of what
05:13I mean by that let us think about Augusta National, tour pros are often asked how would
05:19an average 20 handicapper fair round here in the master set up and they will say they
05:24would not come remotely close to breaking 100, 110 even, whereas that same 20 handicapper
05:29could play around a relatively easy golf course in the early 90s.
05:33Now I have looked on the England Golf website and it tells me that my handicap index is
05:36going to be 4.3, now that means around this golf course here at the London Club, we have
05:41done the maths, I would get 5.25, 5.3 shots so I would play off 5 if I played off the
05:49tips round here.
05:50If I played elsewhere, even a harder golf course, let us say Carnoustie, Trump International
05:55off the back tees, the slope rating is going to be somewhere up in the 140s, maybe even
06:00150, I suspect I would get 6 shots round there, but the difference is a higher handicapper
06:05going to a place like that, let us say you are playing off 21 or 22, you might find when
06:10you get to Trump International and you decide to take it off the back tees, wisely or unwisely,
06:16you might find you are getting 28 or 29 shots, I have not done the precise maths, but the
06:20higher your handicap, the more shots you are likely to get over and above your handicap
06:25index than a lower handicapper.
06:28Conversely of course if the slope rating is lower you are going to get fewer shots.
06:33Now the good news is you do not have to do all this maths yourself, the club should be
06:36displaying course handicap information on notice boards, perhaps big boards by the tee,
06:43hopefully on the website, so all the figures are there for you, all you have to do is cross
06:47reference your handicap index against the slope rating of the tees you have chosen to
06:52play from that day and you will find out how many strokes you are entitled to for that
06:56given round.
07:03Okay so that is the basics, now there are a few other little things that are going to
07:05have some bearing on how the whole thing works.
07:07One of those is the playing conditions calculation, PCC, and this is going to factor in other
07:14conditions on the day, out on the golf course, weather, firmness of fairways or whatever
07:19that either make the course particularly easy or particularly hard and it is going to factor
07:23that into the handicap calculations for that day based on anyone out on the course that
07:28day playing in a competition or putting in a card for handicap and it can go down one,
07:34it can go up plus three, those of us in the UK are kind of used to a similar thing with
07:38the competition scratch score which mitigated against the course playing particularly easy
07:44or particularly hard on a given day.
07:45So that will still be there for those of us in the UK, it may be new to people elsewhere
07:50in the world.
07:57Finally then there are a couple of what you might term safeguards in the system which
08:00we just need to talk about here.
08:02The first of those is the low handicap index and this is an anchor point which is the low
08:07point of your handicap over a 12 month period and your handicap cannot rise by more than
08:13five shots from that and I guess that is to mitigate possibly against foul play I suppose
08:17but more a really poor spell of form seeing your handicap go like that which you would
08:23do under the new system more so than under the old system for those of us in the UK and
08:27Ireland where 20 bad rounds would see you go up two shots 0.1 times 20, 20 really poor
08:34rounds under the new system could in theory see your handicap rise massively.
08:39So there is going to be a limit of five and there is also a couple of things called soft
08:42and hard caps.
08:44The soft cap once your handicap has gone up by more than three from that LHI, low handicap
08:49index anything above that between there and five only goes up by half what it would do
08:54under the normal calculation so if it would have gone up to five it only goes up to four,
08:59if it would have gone up to six it only goes up to 4.5 and then there is the hard cap which
09:03is that five, that absolute limit by which your handicap cannot go up by more than that
09:08over the course of a 12 month period.
09:17Finally then we have a safeguard the other way if you like by the exceptional score reduction
09:22measure that is going to be built into the system and this is really to ensure that if
09:27you have an absolute blinder and you play a long way below your handicap index your
09:33handicap index gets affected by more than it would do under the normal calculation and
09:37the bar has been set at seven.
09:38If you have a score differential in a round which is seven or more so you play seven shots
09:44better than your handicap index there will be an extra minus one set against your handicap
09:49index and that will apply to all the 20 current counting score differentials which means that
09:55over time it will gradually drop off but at that particular moment you will have an extra
09:59one shot taken off your handicap.
10:01Finally then if you shoot ten under your handicap, handicap index you are going to have a two
10:06stroke additional reduction applied to your 20 current counting score differentials and
10:12that is just to make sure that your handicap index reflects your current ability and that
10:18you don't therefore go and clean up in competitions because the normal calculation didn't give
10:22you a big enough reduction.
10:24And if it was just a freak once in a lifetime score then gradually over the next few rounds
10:29it will work its way back out of your handicap index.
10:32So there we are those are what we think are the key terms you need to know about the World
10:35Handicap System.
10:36You can go into as much detail as you like elsewhere on the home uni websites but the
10:41key things you really need to know are handicap index and the slope rating of the course you
10:45are playing from the tees you are playing from that day.
10:48So what do you think of the World Handicap System, Handicap Index, do you know what yours
10:52is?
10:53Has it surprised you?
10:54Do you think the system is going to be better or worse than the old system for us in the
10:58UK and Ireland?
10:59Let us know your thoughts below but for now from a slightly wet and windy London club
11:03it's goodbye.