Golf Scorecard Explained

Here we have put together a simple, no frills explanation and illustration of a typical golf scorecard. What the key components are and what they mean.

The Main Scorecard

Competition

Can be either the competition name, or a “casual round” used for handicap submissions.

Handicap

• Index – This is your World Handicap Index (WHI).
• Course – This will be the number of handicap strokes you have for the round, and will be relevant to either 18 or 9 holes, depending on what you’re playing. Expect this to be different to your WHI in most instances, as this is reflective of course difficulty.
• Playing – This is the handicap you will be playing with. Sometimes competitions   use a percentage of your course handicap, ie, 90%. Here is where you would put your adjusted completion handicap. Eg. For a course handicap of 20, playing ina competition with 90% handicap, your playing handicap will be 90% of 20 = 16.

SI – Stroke Index

This is the difficulty of each hole, 1 being most difficult, 18 least difficult. The same applies if playing 9 holes, but you may find the numbers aren’t 1-9. Instead they will be odd numbers [1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17] or even numbers [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18].

White, Yellow, Red Tees (sometimes Blue)

These indicate the yardage of the hole relative to the tee off colour. Note in the example below the Red and Yellow SI’s are different. In the absence of SI’s for white (or Blue) yardage, take the Yellow SI’s.

Player A, B or C

The marker completes the scores for these players.

Marker [or D]

Simply the person who marks the card, completing other players scores as well their own.

Mark what you’re playing

Use the tick box to highlight which holes you play. You should only tick one. Again, colours represent which tee off you use.

Course Rating (CR)

Course Rating (CR) is an indicator of difficulty. The value will be similar to the par for the course. Lower CR indicates an easier course than par, higher indicates more difficult.

Slope Rating (SL)

This is the Slope rating of the course. This is used as part of the calculation of your World Handicap Index and the playing handicap for the course.

Total & Score

This is the total score of the player(s) not the Marker, whether this be the total strokes taken, stableford scoring or similar.

H’cap (Handicap or WHS)

The course handicap, or playing handicap as described above.

Additional Information

Course Maps

In figure 2a above, the yardage indicates how far away from the front of the green you are. It is important to note that other maps and course markers often give yardage to the middle of the green, it’s worth checking.

The number on the green in figure 2a indicates the depth of the green in yards, front to back.

Arrows indicate slope.

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