News & Events

25 January 2024

The way your Course Handicap is worked out under the World Handicap System is changing. From April 2024, Great Britain and Ireland will join many other handicapping associations around the globe by including a Course Rating minus Par adjustment.

The Course Rating represents the difficulty of a course for a scratch golfer. That’s a ‘0’ handicapper – not +1 or 1. If a course has a par of 71 but a course rating of 72, it’s the latter number our scratch golfer is expected to record if they played a round.

Your Course Handicap is currently worked out using this calculation:

Handicap Index x (Slope Rating/113).

Course Rating minus Par is pretty much as it says on the tin. Take the Course Rating, minus the par of the course, and add that to your Course Handicap calculation, which now looks like this:

Handicap Index x (Slope Rating/113) + (Course Rating – Par).

If the par of your course is lower than the course rating, you will receive extra strokes. If the par is higher, you will lose strokes. This will apply to every handicap. For example, a layout with a course rating of 73.6, but a par of 72, would see 1.6 shots added to your Course Handicap.

A course with a rating of 69.5, but a par of 70, would see half a shot taken from your Course Handicap.

Players will now play to par and not the Course Rating for handicapping purposes. With most clubs having a different Course Rating for each tee (e.g.Red/Yellow/White), you should start to see your Course Handicaps moving a bit more between tee sets as Course Rating minus Par is applied.

Lower handicappers could also see some benefits – particularly on layouts which have a more difficult course rating. Taking the 73.6 rated course, as an example and a scratch and 18-handicapper. Both will receive 1.6 shots under Course Rating minus Par. Which of those golfers, though, is likely to find this more beneficial?