If you find yourself wondering what your mark is going to be after a round just follow these simple instructions
Your World Handicap System Index updates at midnight every time you submit an acceptable score.
Even so, that’s still too long for some of us who want to know as soon as possible what our efforts on the course are going to do to our numbers.
In the old CONGU days, you’d have a guess at what competition standard scratch would be – sometimes a live leaderboard would give you a glimpse of how it was looking – and then you’d subtract 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 or 0.4 for each shot you were under your handicap depending on what category you were in.
If you were going to cross a category, you’d have a guess at where that would happen and change accordingly.
If you’d had a bad day, you knew you were adding the dreaded .1.
Some of you clearly yearn to do this with WHS too and you’ll be delighted to learn there is a very simple, and pretty accurate, way to work it out. Ready?
How to quickly calculate your World Handicap System index
Take the score differentials of your best eight rounds out of your last 20 and just divide them by eight.
How do you do this? If you’ve got the MyEG app (and if you haven’t you should just download it from the Apple or Google Play stores), and if you haven’t got a counting round dropping off just look for the rounds in green.
You’ll find the number titled ‘Score Diff’ to the left and it is that figure you use.
So in my case, my WHS index is 11.0. My eight best score differentials are: 9.6, 14.4, 13.5, 14.5, 6.5, 6.5, 11.8 and 11.4.
Add them together and you get 88.2. Divide them by eight, and… the calculator spits out 11.025. Or a WHS Index of 11.0.
If you’ve got a counting round dropping off, you should still be able to find the differential of your next lowest score. If it’s your most latest round the number will be there even if the round hasn’t been tagged as green yet.
Then just repeat the process to find your new Index.
But you will need to be aware that a Playing Conditions Calculation adjustment could apply – depending on how players performed in the conditions against expected scoring patterns – and that isn’t processed until after midnight on the day you’ve played your round.
Have your say
Have you used this system to work out your World Handicap System index? Do you use an even simpler way? Let me know about it on X.
WHS Changes 2024
- Your fourball betterball score could soon count towards your handicap!
- What is Course Rating minus Par?
- Play on a Par 3 course? You could put in a score for handicap!
- 14-hole rounds counting for handicap? It’s going to happen!
- What is Expected Score?
- Can we play competitions over odd numbers of holes?
- What’s happening to my Course Handicap?
- It’s all about the governance! Why the R&A and USGA have carried a review of the World Handicap System
Steve Carroll
