USGA handicap calculation

Hi Darren

My GST handicap is 14.5. When I look at handicap tools, my USGA handicap is 20.3

My GST handicap has been below 17 for the whole of 2007. Can this be right?

cheers

John

Thats funny. My USGA handicap is 18.8

What's funny, Danny, mine is somehow 12.3. I had better start practising.

It's only to give you an idea and not exact unless you play courses that have true slope ratings and course ratings as used in the US and Europe.

To work out the US handicap I use the SSS as the Course rating and use the default standard value for slope of 113 which technically is not always true. US courses vary with slop from 55 to 155.

Obviously all US users will have an accurate exact US handicap because the score cards will inlcude a true Course Rating and Slope rating.

The US system using slope is great because it allows your handicap to vary depending on the course you are playing and the slope.

What is this slope?

Instead of just total length they are now taking into account varying degrees of difficulty. As we all know some courses are much tougher than others and a 10 handicapper at a tough course will be a much better player than a 10 handicapper at an easy course.

But how exactly is calculted. What do the numbers refer too?

The course rating and slope are determined by a visit from a USGA rating team. Wow, is that the dream job!

Anyway, the methodology used by the USGA rating team, and slope itself, is very well described described at

http://golf.about.com/cs/rulesofgolf/a/hfaq_determine.htm

Why can't the EGU get it's finger out and adopt the Slope system for England. (The slope have been assessed for Scotland's courses)

http://www.popeofslope.com/scotland/courseratings.html