How Does a Golf Handicap Work? A Plain Guide

A golf handicap is a number that measures how good a golfer you are. The lower it is, the better you play. Its job is to let golfers of different abilities play a fair game: the higher handicap receives extra strokes, so a beginner and a strong player can both have a real chance to win.

This guide explains how real-world handicaps work, in plain language, and then how the in-game handicap in One Fairway works.

The short version

Your handicap is based on your best recent scores, not your average.
It's adjusted for how hard the course is.
Before a round, it becomes the number of strokes you receive on that course.
Net score = your actual (gross) score minus your strokes. Net scores are what make handicap games fair.

The World Handicap System

Since 2020, most of the golfing world has used one system: the World Handicap System (WHS), run by the USGA and The R&A and administered by national golf associations. It gives each golfer a Handicap Index, a number up to 54.0 that travels with you from course to course.

Step 1: Each round becomes a score differential

After a round, your score is turned into a score differential: how well you played compared with the course's difficulty.

Score differential = (113 ÷ Slope Rating) × (Adjusted Gross Score − Course Rating − any daily adjustment)

Course Rating is what a scratch golfer (a handicap of zero) is expected to score on that course, for example 71.4.
Slope Rating measures how much harder the course plays for a higher-handicap golfer than for a scratch golfer. 113 is the standard; the range runs from 55 to 155.
Adjusted Gross Score is your score with any very bad holes capped (see "net double bogey" below).
The daily adjustment (the playing conditions calculation) can nudge differentials when weather or course set-up made scoring unusually hard or easy that day.

Step 2: Your Handicap Index is the average of your best 8 of your last 20

Your Handicap Index is the average of the best 8 score differentials from your most recent 20 rounds. When you have fewer than 20, a smaller number of best differentials is used, according to a table. Nine-hole rounds count too.

Using only your best rounds means your handicap reflects what you're capable of on a good day, not your average.

Step 3: Your Course Handicap tells you how many strokes you get

Before a round, your Handicap Index is converted into a Course Handicap for the tees you're playing:

Course Handicap = Handicap Index × (Slope Rating ÷ 113) + (Course Rating − Par)

So the same golfer receives more strokes on a hard course than an easy one. Competitions may then apply a handicap allowance (for example a percentage of the Course Handicap in stroke play) to get your Playing Handicap.

Step 4: Strokes fall on the hardest holes

Each hole has a stroke index from 1 (the hardest) to 18 (the easiest). If you receive 10 strokes, you get one on each of the holes with stroke index 1 to 10. If you receive more than 18, you get two on the hardest holes.

On a hole where you receive a stroke, a gross 5 becomes a net 4.

Protections built into the system

Net double bogey. For handicap purposes, the most you can score on any hole is double bogey plus any strokes you receive there. One disaster can't ruin your differential.
Most likely score. If a hole isn't finished, for example because a putt was conceded in match play, you record the score you'd most likely have made. About gimmes.
Caps. Your Handicap Index can't rise more than 5.0 above your lowest index of the past 12 months, and increases beyond 3.0 are slowed. This stops a short bad spell inflating it.
Exceptional scores. A score differential 7.0 or more below your index lowers it straight away: by 1 stroke, or by 2 when it's 10.0 or more below.

Handicaps in match play

In a handicap match, the higher handicap usually receives the difference between the two Course Handicaps, on the holes with the lowest stroke index. Match play rules. In foursomes (alternate shot) match play, the recommended allowance gives the weaker team half the difference between the two teams' combined Course Handicaps.

How to get an official handicap

You get an official Handicap Index through a golf club or your national golf association. Rounds you submit need to be played under the Rules of Golf, on a rated course, and usually with someone to verify your score. A first index normally needs 54 holes of scores.

One Fairway's in-game handicap

One Fairway gives every player an in-game handicap, worked out by our server from rounds played in the game. It's modelled on the real system's ideas so it feels familiar, but it's simpler and it's ours.

It isn't an official handicap. It isn't a WHS Handicap Index, isn't linked to any golf association or handicap service, and can't be used at a real golf club. It only measures how you play One Fairway.

Which rounds count

Every finished front nine, back nine or full 18 counts automatically, whether you play solo or in a match, once our server has verified its shots. You can't pick which rounds count, so nobody can protect a low number or inflate a high one.
Quick threes and the daily challenge don't count. They're too short.
Alternate shot doesn't count. You only hit half the shots.
Matches that end early (such as "3 & 2") don't count, because the round wasn't finished.

How it's worked out

Each round becomes a differential: your score minus par, scaled to 18 holes. (Stonepine doesn't have a course rating or slope yet, so par stands in for them. That's one of the ways ours is simpler.)
You get a handicap after 3 counting rounds.
It's the average of your best 8 of your last 20 differentials. With fewer rounds, proportionally fewer of your best ones are used.
An exceptional round lowers it at once: 7 strokes better than your handicap takes off 1, and 10 strokes better takes off 2.
It can't rise more than 5.0 above your lowest handicap of the past 12 months.
It's shown to one decimal place, up to a maximum of 54.0.

Holes you pick up or concede count as net double bogey, as in real golf (before you have a handicap, par plus 5). A gimme counts as holed in one more stroke.

What it's used for

Fair friendly matches. In stroke play, each golfer receives their handicap's strokes, scaled to the holes you're playing. In match play, the higher handicap receives the difference. In alternate shot, each team plays off half its partners' combined handicap. Golfers without a handicap yet play off 24. Stonepine doesn't have a stroke index yet, so strokes fall one per hole in the order you play.
Matchmaking. Ranked play pairs you with golfers near your level and handicap.
Your profile and the handicap leaderboard, for the world, your country and your friends.

Ranked matches themselves are played without handicap strokes. There, everyone plays off scratch, and your rating does the work.

Play a round and start your handicap · Play a handicap match with friends

How does a golf handicap work?