The various official handicapping systems (USGA, CONGU, Australian and other national unions) are too complex to understand and administer for our liking, but more importantly they ignore the realities of golf as played by Duffers. So, while we agree entirely with the aim of those systems - to enable enjoyable and fair play between golfers of different abilities - we have adapted them to suit our members' style of play. The key differences are outlined below.
- Our system recognises that Duffers play differently to low handicap golfers. Whereas a single-handicap player may have the occasional and exceptional disaster - a 7, 8 or 9 on a par 4, say - this happens to Duffers all the time, often several times a round. It is therefore normal, not exceptional. For this reason, the official practice of capping any bad score at two over par when counting a card towards a handicap (known as ESC - Equitable Stroke Control - in the US) is meaningless in our system, so we have dropped it. We count every stroke, because we know that Duffers are trying on every shot.
- In keeping with the "talentism" of the official systems, they make ample allowance for good scores in calculating your handicap, but have scant regard for the bad ones. Whereas a handicap can go down by a whole shot or more after one good round, it can never go up by more than 0.1 of a shot, no matter how bad the score. We disagree. Duffers try their hardest on every shot, so every stroke should count. In our system, scores above one's handicap have just as much impact as scores below.
- Like the official systems, we recognise different categories of Duffer, by handicap (see below). But there the resemblance ends. Each official category has a defined "buffer zone", and scores above handicap may be ignored for handicapping purposes if they fall within the zone. Once again this ignores our principle that every stroke counts, because Duffers are trying on every shot. We consider that all Duffers are in the "Duffer zone" together, and deserve equal treatment. We therefore do not have "buffer zones" to discriminate in the application of the handicapping system, and only use the handicap categories for the purposes of organising competitions, or for finding out how different types of advice or equipment may benefit different levels of player.
- In the official systems, every new round has a direct and immediate effect on your handicap for the next game, regardless of your overall recent form. Because Duffers know that good days and bad will happen without knowing why, making it impossible to apply that knowledge next time, we average scores over the last three games played, thereby better reflecting form over time, as against a single day.
- Official handicap systems require an understanding of several complex and confusing notions, such as Standard Scratch Score, Competition Scratch Score and the Slope Rating of the course, none of which have a direct relationship to the simple and fundamental truth of every golf hole - its par. Even if, as Duffers, we rarely make pars, we understand that par is the number of shots which a first class golfer may be expected to take on a hole, and that it is composed of one, two or three shots to the green, followed by two putts. The sum of the eighteen individual pars gives the par for the course, and that is the elementary basis on which Duffers handicaps are calculated.
Because we know that our scoring is not so much a matter of the difficulty of the course, as our inability to hit the right shots. The finer points of distance, variations in the narrowness of fairways, depth of rough, or the number of bunkers mean less to us than to the low handicapper. We are as likely to hit the ball ten yards as two hundred on any given shot, and fifty yards off-line as likely as five, so par is the simplest yardstick against which to measure ourselves.
- If you already have an official handicap we shall simply convert it to a Duffers handicap for use in play between Fellow Duffers, in friendly games or in competitions. But if you don't have one, either because you do not belong to a club, or because your scores are outside the range admitted by the official system - no problem! We will give you a provisional Duffers handicap based on your first round played as a member of the DGC, and a full Duffers handicap as soon as we have three scores from you. Your Duffers handicap will then evolve over time according to our rules, as you submit your scores to us. Full details of how the system works can be found by clicking here.
- The chart below shows the correlation between traditional handicaps (in brackets) and Duffers handicaps. We consider that the "magic" score which every Duffer wants to beat is 100 for eighteen holes, and if we assume a par for most courses of 72, this means that a scratch Duffer has a traditional handicap of 28. A traditional handicap of 36 is therefore a Duffers 8, and so on. There is no upper limit for Duffers handicaps, but we set a lower limit of +9 (traditional 19), because we believe that at 18 or lower a golfer has ceased to be a Duffer.
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