Bandits beware. If you’re trying to cheat the World Handicap System, you may want to think again.
The maximum your handicap is able to rise in a calendar year is FIVE strokes.
Want to know how they came up with that? Get your calculators out. You might need one.
When it was announced the WHS would use an average of the best eight from the last 20 scores, alarm bells went off for savvy players.
With golfers encouraged to put in ‘acceptable’ scores to count, whether competition or social, there was the fear some players might be less than honest.
For the more committed among the larcenous, there was the prospect they could flood their record with a raft of quick – bad – scores and wait for their handicaps to soar. Just in time to run off with a host of trophies.
But the WHS has built in protections to ward off those who aren’t as scrupulous as the rest of us.
It also endeavours to protect the hard work of those who have simply hit a bad patch of form. Within it, there is a suppression mechanism that prevents individual marks going up too severely.
It’s known as ‘The Cap’.
WHS hard and soft cap: How do they work?
It works by finding an anchor point, or a player’s low handicap index. This is the lowest handicap index a golfer has achieved within the last 12 months.
The cap then limits the increase of that handicap index, again over the rolling 12 month period, “measured against the player’s lowest handicap index within that period of time”.
Got it so far? Good. Here’s where it gets a little more complex.
There are two forms of cap – soft and hard.
A soft cap means that when a new calculated handicap index is more than three strokes above the player’s lowest index within the trailing 12 months, the increase is limited so only half of any rise above three strokes is applied.
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That’s a bit of a mouthful, so here’s the maths – using England Golf examples – to explain it a little better. This is where you may need the calculators…
“I have a low handicap index of 12 over the last year. But my best 8 out of 20 scores now give me a calculated handicap index of 17.0.”
In this case, I get an increase of three strokes before the soft cap is calculated.
That soft cap calculation, to get my exact return, uses this formula: ½ x (Calculated handicap index – (Low handicap Index + 3)).
So that’s ½ x (17.0 – (12.0 + 3)).
Or to put it more simply: ½ x (17-15) or ½ x 2.
The soft cap, therefore, is an extra stroke (1/2 x 2 = 1) and my handicap increases by four shots (3+1). I’m now playing off 16.
But there is also a hard cap, which is the maximum your mark can increase over that low handicap index in a rolling 12 months.
That number is five. So it doesn’t matter how many ½s you add on in the soft cap and it doesn’t matter how badly you’ve played in the intervening period. You can only increase a maximum of five shots in that period.
So if you take that player with a low handicap index of 12, but their best 8 out of 20 sees them coming out at 20, their handicap is capped at 17.
If you’re still with me, here’s the maths to prove it.
I’ve still got a low handicap index of 12. The first three shot rise takes that to 15.
My calculated handicap is 20 and 20 minus 15 (low handicap index + 3) is 5.
If there was no hard cap, 5 would be halved under the soft cap – equalling 2.5 – and my handicap would be 17.5.
But because that would be 5.5 strokes above my lowest handicap index over the previous 12 months, and the highest permissible increase is 5, my mark is capped at 17.
Now breathe.
You don’t need to know any of the maths for the WHS soft and hard cap. The handicap computer at your clubs does all the calculations for you. Just turn up, or load up your digital app, and find out what your latest handicap index is.
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Curious over how long a soft cap stays on your handicap, or want to know more about the WHS soft and hard cap calculation? Get in touch with us on X.
