I f you didn’t lose a well-struck, well-planned drive in the mud or the lush, high rough that the gushing skies gifted to Colorado this summer, well, you must not have been playing golf!
When you couldn’t find it, what did you do? Go back to the tee to play your third? Doubt it, unless it was a league or CGA competition.
Drop in the approximate area, take a two-shot penalty and play your fourth? Doubt that too, even if the foursome behind you had hands on hips.
No, you probably either dropped a ball and played on as if you’d found the original, or played it as if you lost your ball in a penalty area, dropping and taking a one-stroke penalty.
And then after the round you entered your score that way and posted it to your record.
USGA Director of Handicapping and Outreach Lee Rainwater says you may have meant well but broke the rules and possibly manipulated your handicap.
“A lot of that is probably in the spirit of the wishes of the golf course or not wanting to hold up the folks behind and just take that drop,” says Rainwater. “If you do that one time in one round and it wasn’t otherwise a very good round of golf anyway, the impact is going to be pretty much nothing because it’s going to fall out of the top eight scores (of your last 20) that make up your Handicap Index.
“But if it was an otherwise good round of golf and you didn’t proceed correctly by the rules and didn’t take the proper penalty strokes, then you end up with a score differential that is too low, and if you do that on a regular basis then the handicap index is going to be too low.
“As a result, playing in a more formal setting by the rules, you’re going to start off behind a little bit because you haven’t played by the rules.”
The same thing happens when, in playing two against two with friends, the other team has holed out for birdie and yours has a 12-foot par putt. “That’s good,” they’ll say, and you pick up the ball and record a par.
Or when your friend gives you a mulligan when you hit it into the trees on No. 10 and you post the score you had with the second ball?
Wrong and wrong.
The USGA is crystal clear on what scores a golfer should post: every score from every round that is played and scored according to the Rules of Golf. Rainwater calls these “acceptable scores” for handicap purposes.
The USGA doesn’t have statistics on what percentage of golfers play strictly by the rules, or even say they do, but Rainwater concedes, “We all know folks that are very serious about playing by the rules and can’t stand the thought of a gimme or picking up before the ball is holed. And then we also know the other golfers that are very lax about rules. But I think by and large people are trying to play with integrity and play by the rules.”
Yes, by and large – but… In fun weekend rounds with friends, gimmes, mulligans and questionable drops are common. And if we don’t post scores for those rounds, described as “general golf” in the rules, pretty soon we end up with a Handicap Index based only on tournament rounds.
Some Colorado leagues prefer to do their own handicapping using only scores from their tournaments. The USGA allows that, but doesn’t prefer it.
“We like a golfer to post all their scores because it is the best representation of demonstrated ability,” Rainwater says. “It’s got all performances and not just a selection of scores that are purely based on competitive rounds.”
Most of us don’t want an artificially reduced handicap, known as a “vanity handicap,” or an artificially inflated one, which makes us a “sandbagger.” But many of us simply don’t know how to score these fun rounds with friends.
First, get to know “net double bogey.”
In the old days, the USGA had a complicated system called ESC that determined the maximum score a player can post on a hole based on the player’s handicap. That’s been replaced by net double bogey, which represents two over par plus any strokes your handicap gets you on a given hole.
Just check the “handicap” numbers on the scorecard, which ranks holes from 1 to 18 in order of difficulty. If your handicap from the tees you’re playing is 20, your net double bogey equals double bogey plus one on 16 holes and double bogey plus two on the two hardest holes.
“One of the great things about net double goes back to casual play,” says Rainwater. “I’m playing Monday and I had a few holes just hitting it left and left and right. At net double bogey, from a USGA standpoint, we’re supportive of the golfer picking up. Ball in the pocket, let’s try again next hole. In a casual round with friends, that’s supported, and it’s not going to skew your Handicap Index in any way, shape or form.”
That’s also a way to maintain the integrity of your handicap on holes where you played a mulligan or incorrectly dropped: Just write in net double bogey – or do what one friend does and input 10 in the GHIN app and let the app figure out net double bogey.
Second, if you’re using match play format in your fun round, consider “most likely score.” And no, it does not mean that the 10-foot putt your friend just gave you counts as one stroke.
Take a look at this graphic from the USGA for a more accurate way to score holes you do not complete in match play.
“When a foursome is out and everyone is playing their own ball, ‘most likely score’ is not intended for that purpose,” Rainwater says. “But practicality comes in if you’re playing with your friends and you have a 2-foot putt and they say, all right, pick it up, that’s good.
“From a practicality standpoint, ‘most likely score’ is fine. It’s just that you’re not going to find that language verbatim in the rules of handicapping.”
One might argue that “most likely score” sometimes produces a more accurate number than “net double bogey.” For example, when you couldn’t find that tee shot that meandered off the fairway into the Colorado rough and had to take a drop, maybe it’s a hole you usually par and would never make net double bogey.
That’s a story for another day. The point today is, if you’re playing golf and doing your best, you almost always can, and should, open up your GHIN app or the web portal and post a score.
Veteran journalist Susan Fornoff has written about golf for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, ColoradoBiz magazine and her own GottaGoGolf.com. She became a CGA member when she moved from Oakland, CA, to Littleton in 2016, and ghost-writes as “Molly McMulligan,” the CGA’s on-course consultant on golf for fun. Email her at mollymcmulligan@gmail.com.
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