Almost every golf association now uses the World Handicap System (WHS). It turns each round into a score differential, averages your best recent differentials into a handicap, and then turns that into a course handicap for the tees you're about to play. Here's each step.
Step 1: Cap each hole at net double bogey
Before a round counts, any hole worse than net double bogey is lowered to it. Net double bogey is par + 2 + any handicap strokes you get on that hole. This keeps one blow-up hole from wrecking your handicap. The capped total is your adjusted gross score.
You have a course handicap of 16, so you get a stroke on the 16 hardest holes (stroke index 1 to 16). On a par 4 with stroke index 7, net double bogey is 4 + 2 + 1 = 7. If you made a 9 there, it counts as 7. A course handicap over 18 gets a second stroke on the hardest holes: at 20, the holes with stroke index 1 and 2 get two.
Step 2: Work out the score differential
A differential measures how well you played against the difficulty of the course. Every set of tees has a course rating (what a scratch golfer is expected to shoot) and a slope rating (how much harder it plays for everyone else; 113 is standard).
Differential = (adjusted gross score − course rating) × 113 ÷ slope
You shoot an adjusted 90 from tees rated 71.5 with a slope of 128: (90 − 71.5) × 113 ÷ 128 = 16.3.
Officially, a daily playing conditions adjustment can also nudge every differential that day when the weather makes the course play much harder or easier than normal.
Step 3: Average your best 8 of your last 20
Your handicap is the average of your lowest 8 differentials from your most recent 20 rounds, rounded to one decimal. It reflects your potential, not your average round, which is why most golfers shoot a few strokes above their handicap on a normal day.
Your best 8 of 20 are 12.1, 13.4, 13.8, 14.0, 14.6, 15.2, 15.5 and 16.3. They add up to 114.9, and 114.9 ÷ 8 = 14.4.
With fewer than 20 rounds, the official system uses fewer differentials (with three, the lowest one minus 2 strokes) and needs 54 holes before it issues a handicap. Nine-hole rounds count once they're paired with another nine or combined with an expected score.
Step 4: Turn it into a course handicap
Your handicap is portable; the strokes you get depend on where you play. The course handicap converts it for the tees you pick.
Course handicap = handicap × slope ÷ 113 + (course rating − par)
With a handicap of 15.0 on those par-72 tees rated 71.5, slope 128: 15.0 × 128 ÷ 113 + (71.5 − 72) = 16.49, which rounds to 16. That's how many strokes you get there.
The safeguards
- Soft and hard caps: if your handicap rises more than 3 strokes above your lowest of the past year, further increases are halved, and it can never rise more than 5 above that low.
- Exceptional scores: a round whose differential is 7 or more below your handicap cuts it by an extra 1 or 2 strokes straight away.
- Competitions often use a share of the course handicap (a playing handicap), such as 95% in individual stroke play.
Updated November 12, 2026 by the Greens team.