A Simpler World Golf Handicap System To Begin In 2020

Rick Arnett / Feb. 20th, 2018

Golf handicaps are a love-hate for most players. An honest one is applauded. A sandbagging one is despised. There’s also the ego handicap where a obliviot’s dubious skill set is exposed almost immediately.

But for those who enjoy measuring their golf prowess, a new handicap system is a-coming our way in 2020. Golfweek’s Brentley Romine dishes the details.

The World Handicap System is designed to encourage all golfers to carry a handicap, enable golfers of differing abilities, genders and nationalities to transport their handicap to any course globally and indicate with sufficient accuracy the score a golfer is reasonably capable of achieving on any course around the world, playing under normal conditions.

“For some time, we’ve heard golfers say, ‘I’m not good enough to have a handicap,’ or ‘I don’t play enough to have a handicap,’” USGA CEO Mike Davis said. “We want to make the right decisions now to encourage a more welcoming and social game. We’re excited to be taking another important step – along with modernizing golf’s Rules – to provide a pathway into the sport, making golf easier to understand and more approachable and enjoyable for everyone to play.”

Here are a few highlights of the changes.

A consistent handicap that is portable from course to course and country to country through worldwide use of the USGA Course and Slope Rating System, already successfully used in more than 80 countries.
An average-based calculation of a handicap, taken from the best eight out of the last 20 scores and factoring in memory of demonstrated ability for better responsiveness and control. It used to be 10 of 20.

Included in the new details is a stat I never would’ve known.

A maximum handicap limit of 54.0, regardless of gender, to encourage more golfers to measure and track their performance to increase their enjoyment of the game. 54?

According to research done in 15 countries, 76 percent of the 52,000 respondents supported the new system while just 2 percent were opposed. It’s not earth-shattering news, but anything to improve and simplify our intimidating game is welcome.