The best eight of your last twenty rounds, adjusted for the beating each course gave you, then averaged. That's a Handicap Index. Everything after that is just talk in the cart.
— built by people who play, for people who keep score.
Your Golf Handicap Index is a single portable number that measures your potential scoring ability under the World Handicap System (WHS). It is the average of the best 8 score differentials from your last 20 rounds — so a lower index means a better golfer, and a scratch player sits at 0.0.
Pencil your recent scores into the free WHS Handicap Index calculator below to reckon yours in seconds — no sign-up — then see where your number stands against the field, learn the money games, and brush up on the scoring lingo.
| Index | Who That Is | Typical Score | The Field |
|---|---|---|---|
| +3 to 0 | Scratch / Plus | 68–72 | Top 2% |
| 1–9 | Single Digit | 73–82 | Top 15% |
| 10–18 | Mid Handicapper | 83–94 | Most common |
| 19–28 | High Handicapper | 95–108 | ~40% of players |
| 29–54 | Newcomer | 109+ | Just getting going |
Drop in three rounds or twenty — drag the tee or tap the number in. Got your course's Rating & Slope off the card? Even better. The index reckons itself as you go, and every differential shows its work below.
Press Enter in a score box to add the next round · ↑↓ nudge the score
Pencil in a score.
Your index lands here.
Standing on the first tee wondering what one more round would do to your number? Slide a score in and watch the index move — before you've hit a shot.
The what-if adds this round to your card temporarily — it never changes the real numbers above unless you actually add it.
| Round | Score | Diff. | Relative | Status |
|---|
Reckoned with the real WHS formula: differential = (113 ÷ slope) × (score − rating), then the average of the best 8 of your last 20. Saved to this device
You keep your own card here — attest it honestly and the number means something. Fudge a stroke and you're only cheating the guy in the mirror. Nothing you enter leaves this device; it just saves so your rounds are waiting next time. — the committee (that's you)
The handicap keeps it fair. These keep it interesting. Four cart-tested ways to make the back nine matter — with just enough rules to settle the argument on the 18th.
Three bets in one
The classic. You're not playing one match, you're playing three: the front nine, the back nine, and the full eighteen — each its own wager. A "2-2-2" is two dollars on each. Down a match? Call a press and start a fresh side bet from that hole.
Keep ScoreEvery hole a duel
Each hole is its own pot — a "skin." Win it outright and it's yours. Tie the hole and the skin carries to the next, so a run of halves can turn a 4-footer on 14 into the whole afternoon's money. Cruel, brilliant, and impossible to quit.
Keep ScorePick your partner — or don't
Order rotates every hole; the last to tee off is the Wolf. After watching each drive, the Wolf picks a partner for that hole — or goes Lone Wolf against all three for double or triple the points. Read your foursome right and you clean up. Read them wrong and you're buying.
Keep ScoreThree points a hole
Rewards order, not distance — great for mixed groups. Three points on every hole: Bingo, first ball on the green; Bango, closest once everyone's on; Bongo, first in the cup. Play ready golf and the short hitter can absolutely take your lunch money.
Keep ScoreThe vocabulary that separates the golfer from the guy who owns clubs. Every one of these actually comes up — usually right after someone hits a good shot and wants you to know the word for it.
Every good course prints them on the back of the card. Ours are shorter, and only one of them is enforceable.
Because a golf site with no sense of humor is just a spreadsheet in a polo shirt.
Why did the golfer pack two pairs of trousers?
In case he got a hole in one.
My handicap? Honesty.
I keep writing down what I actually shot.
What's a golfer's favorite letter?
Tee. Obviously. Now quiet, I'm putting.