Golf Handicap FAQ: What is Course Handicap?

Course handicap is really the crux of the USGA Handicapping System. It's the number that determines how many strokes - if any - you get on each hole. Therefore, it's the number that makes the system work, that ensures the ability of golfers of differing skill levels to compete against one another, and to do so fairly regardless of where they are playing.

Course handicap is a result of the addition of "slope rating" to "course rating" as factors in the USGA Handicapping System in the early 1980s. A player's scores and the course ratings and slope ratings of courses played are used to calculate a "handicap index."

The handicap index is then compared to the slope rating of the course you are playing and the average slope of 113. The calculation is this: Your Handicap Index multiplied by Slope Rating of Tees Played divided by 113.

For example: Your handicap index is 14.6 and you played a course with a slope of 127. The formula is: 14.6x127/113. The answer to this example is 16.4. Your course handicap is therefore 16 (round up or down).

Did you catch the adjustment made? Because the slope of the course you played was higher than the average (113), you were given extra strokes. Your handicap index was raised to a course handicap of 16.

And that figure is the one used to determine how many strokes you get, and on which holes.

Use Our Course Handicap Calculator
If you know your handicap index and the slope rating of the course you are going to play - or just finished playing - you can calculate your course handicap.

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