Player rating and handicap

By • Category: Statistics

Most of this information was borrowed from a thread on the ITS games forum — thanks to SkipperRipper, Dannyboy, bigdog423452, Thor, and the other guys on the forum for the information!

Your player rating is actually your number on the ELO rating system, a system used to rate players in two-player games like chess. It doesn’t come into play unless you’re playing in a handicap tournament, but you can compare it to other players to see where you rate — the higher, the better. If you beat players in a contest whose rating is higher than yours, your rating goes up, and vice versa. DNFs really knock your rating down, from what I understand. Most of the top players rate over 3000, with the best even topping 3300.

You earn a handicap after playing 36 holes. There is a formula for figuring that too, but it’s usually about 3.5 to 4 strokes higher than your average. So, if you average about -15, your handicap will be +19. Your handicap is always updated based on your last 25 games played.

is a Golden Tee addict from Chicago, IL, thirsty for tips and tricks!
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One Response »

  1. Handicap is NOT based on your last 25 games, but each game will affect it. A game “better” than your handicap will affect your handicap 10 times more than a game “worse”. If your shoot a game 5 strokes better than your handicap, it will go up just about 1 stroke (actually 0.9), conversely, 5 worse will only drop it about 0.1 (actually 0.09).

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