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Handicap Chair
Linda O'Donnell
EWGA strongly encourages all of its members to establish an official golf handicap. It's a measure of your golfing ability and a tool to help you gauge your improvement. Handicaps are especially important for outings and competitions because they allow us to pair you up with players of similar ability. They also level the playing field and make competition fairer.
If you have a handicap of 40, for example, you can still compete against someone with a handicap of 10. How? When the competition is over, officials calculate a "net" score: Your raw score minus your handicap. Maybe your final raw score was 110. Your net score would be 110 - 40 or 70. Let's say your partner with the 10 handicap scores a 95. Her net score = 95 - 10 or 85. You would win in the "low net" competition.
A handicap is a number that represents your skill level and potential scoring ability. Generally speaking, your handicap value is representative of how you should expect to score in relation to par. It's actually a little more complicated than that because other factors are considered such as which tees you play from and how difficult the course is. It is also weighted such that it's more representative of what you'd expect to score on a good day rather than on an average day.
Having a handicap gives you the the ability to compete with golfers of other skill levels on an equitable basis on any course, from any tees. It also provides an objective way to measure golf skill improvement.
An official handicap is required to compete in some of our competitive tournaments. This can be any USGA approved handicap. You do not have to maintain a GHIN and a GN21 handicap, one or the other is fine.
Here is one really important reason to establish a handicap: To participate in the Chapter Championship competitive play, you must post at least 3, 18-hole scores or 6, 9-hole scores in the current year.
But Shouldn't I Wait Until I'm a Better Player to Establish a Handicap?
Absolutely not! Having a handicap as a beginner gives you an excellent measurement of how you are improving. Nearly everyone starts out with a 40+ handicap, then slowly, but surely, as you enter each score, you can watch that handicap drop. It's gratifying to see your own progress and it gives you incentive to practice and play more often.
Knowing your handicap also might boost your golf ego! Let’s say you're playing a par 4 with your buddies and the entire group bogeys the hole. Rather than feeling disappointed, you know your high handicap gives you two strokes on the hole. You can walk away feeling victorious since you shot a birdie! How good will that feel?
Don't wait, get your handicap today!
Have a question about Handicaps? Please send an email to our Handicap Chair,
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