Every calculator you need in one place. Stableford points, scramble team handicap, GIR targets, score estimator, and more. All free. All instant.
Formula: (Score - Course Rating) x 113 / Slope Rating. This estimates a single-round differential. Your official Handicap Index uses the average of your best 8 of last 20 rounds. Find course ratings on your club's scorecard or GHIN.
Formula: (P1 x 20%) + (P2 x 15%) + (P3 x 10%) + (P4 x 5%). For 2-player teams leave P3 and P4 blank -- uses 35% + 15%.
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Each calculator on this page is free to use with no sign-up required. Enter your data, adjust the inputs, and your result updates instantly. All calculators use verified formulas from the World Handicap System (WHS) and standard golf scoring rules.
Start with the Handicap Index calculator when you want to turn your recent scorecards into a single number. Feed it a handful of rounds — your score, the course rating, and the slope — and it works out each round's differential, then averages your best ones. That figure is your Handicap Index, the number you carry from course to course and quote when someone asks what you play off.
Reach for a Course Handicap calculator when you already know your Index and just need to know how many shots you get at the course in front of you. Every layout plays a little harder or easier than the flat standard, and the Slope Rating on the scorecard captures that. The calculator converts your portable Index into the actual strokes you receive off the tees you are playing today.
Use the Stableford points calculator once your strokes are sorted and you want to score by points instead of totting up every shot. Stableford turns each hole into a small target — points for a par, more for a birdie, none for a blow-up — so one wrecked hole does not sink the whole card. Tap in your score hole by hole and the running total does the rest.
And when there is a few quid riding on the round, the betting-game scorers handle the maths for you. Nassau, Skins, Wolf and Bingo Bango Bongo each keep their own running tally, track presses and carryovers, and tell you who owes what on the 18th green — so you can argue about your swing instead of the arithmetic.
These three get muddled constantly, but they sit in a simple order. Your Handicap Index is the portable one. It comes from the best 8 of your last 20 score differentials, and it stays the same whether you tee it up at your home track or a links course three hundred miles away. It is a measure of your demonstrated ability, not a number of shots for any particular day.
Your Course Handicap is that Index translated for one specific course and set of tees. Because a tougher course should hand out more strokes, you adjust the Index by the course's Slope Rating using the standard formula: Course Handicap = Index × (Slope ÷ 113). The 113 is the Slope of a course of average difficulty, so a Slope above 113 nudges your strokes up and one below nudges them down.
Say your Handicap Index is 14.2 and the course you are playing has a Slope Rating of 131. Work it through: 14.2 × (131 ÷ 113) = 14.2 × 1.159 = 16.46, which rounds to a Course Handicap of 16. On an easier course with a Slope of 118 the same Index gives 14.2 × (118 ÷ 113) = 14.8, rounding to 15. Same golfer, same ability — the course simply decides how many shots that ability earns.
Your Playing Handicap is the last step, and it only appears in certain formats. It takes your Course Handicap and applies an allowance for the game being played — singles match play, fourballs, a Stableford competition and so on each carry their own percentage. In a casual medal round your Playing Handicap and Course Handicap are often identical; it is the format, not the course, that separates them.