Just Golf
BY Mike Katz, National Charity Event Specialist
Katz.m@mindspring.com
www.golfoutingmagazine.com

The golf outing event form that you’re about to send back says “fill in your handicap,” as usual you go blank. You just plug in a number and forget about it. This practice is a no-no because a handicap is a measure of a person’s playing level based on the tees played from for a given course. It allows players with different skill sets to play with each other on almost equal terms. The higher your handicap, the poorer your playing ability is. We all have heard the term “scratch golfer.” This is a player with a zero handicap, a “bogey golfer” is a player with an 18 handicap. Someday you may have below a zero handicap. Around the course you would be known as a “plus golfer.” Professional golfers have no handicaps.
How do you get a legit handicap? The simplified formula takes into account your score, the course and its slope rating to determine your differential (number). The 10 differentials out of your last 20 rounds with a few other calculations will now determine your handicap index. This is always updated. Your handicap could change depending if you hit from the white, blue or forward tees. To further add to the confusion, men and women have different factor numbers to divide by in the equation to determine their handicap (men 5.38, women 4.24). If you belong to a golf club or league they most likely use the USGA handicapping system. To get a handicap all you would have to do is post your score on the club’s computer or if you’re lucky just hand in your score card at the pro shop. The USGA administers our handicap systems with local rules also taken into consideration. My suggestion is, if all of the above does not work for you, just fill in the handicap blank with your last few average scores, this should be enough for you to get a semblance of a handicap assigned.
Here is a golf question no one ever brings up. If your ball is on the fringe of the putting green and you use your putter to advance it, does this count as a putting stroke? You now take two more putts on the putting green to hole out. Is this considered a three or two putt? Because of the various opinions I am receiving
on the above question, I am holding off giving the consensus agreement on how many putting strokes are counted till my next month’s column.