"That ball sits and says, "Now idiot, don't hit me in the hazard. Don't hit me over there, hit me on the green. You think you can, idiot? I doubt you can. Especially when you're choking your guts out."" -- Davis Love III --
Submission Forms
Scorecard basics (Page 2 0f 2)
Now that the overview is complete, Let’s get into the line by line analysis. To avoid being redundant we’ll group the Gold, Blue and White tees together. These tees have the same handicap and par score.
The first question would be “Why so many tees?” Answer: The tees are designed for different playing abilities. The theory is two players of different ability can play the same course, with the difficulty being relatively equal. Sounds good, but a scratch golfer (0 handicap) could tear me up no matter what tee box I hit from. A good rule of thumb for a course with four tee stations; Gold tees 0-10 handicap, Blue tees 11-20 handicap and White tees 21+ handicap. The Red tees are usually reserved for Women and children. Just a little side note: The far (back) tees, in this case the Gold, are sometimes referred to as “Playing the tips”. Hitting from the farthest point of the hole (the “tips”).
Back to the grid(FIG. 2). Hole #4 from the White tees plays at 190 yards and is the 6th hardest hole on the course, with a par of 3. How do I know this is the 6th hardest hole on the course? The answer: from the “HANDICAP” line. Each hole is rated on its difficulty compared to all the other holes on the course. The hole rated #1 handicap is the hardest on the course and the #18 handicap is the easiest. This should explain the numbers on the “HANDICAP” line and we’ll get into why they are useful in another article. The “PAR” line is exactly that, expected par for that hole.
(FIG. 2)
(FIG.3)The Red tees (Ladies) is read exactly the same. As you can see by comparing the Red handicap section to the Gold, Blue and White, the difficulty of the holes is different for the Red tees. This is not unusual and some courses will even have a different PAR value for some holes from the Red (front) tees.
(FIG. 3)
The actual scoring happens on the “player name” lines (FIG. 4). The totals for each hole, strokes plus any penalty strokes, are entered on these lines. On the first hole a player hits the ball 5 times but also has 2 penalty strokes. A 7 is entered for that player on hole #1. That’s not too hard, is it? What’s a penalty stroke? That’s a little more difficult and not within the scope of this article. When all the holes are completed, the score is tallied for each player and entered in the total section. Most scorecards are divided into Front 9 score, Back 9 score and total score. The total score is considered your “Gross” score.
(FIG. 4)
The only area we haven’t covered is the two boxes at the end of the “HOLE #” line. The first box is “HCP”. This is where you enter your handicap, if you have one. The other is “NET”. If you are using a handicap, you subtract this number from your gross score to determine your “Net” score for the round.
Oops! The “OUT” box. To explain that will require a short history lesson. “Back in the day”, when golf was young, things were different. Some time in the 1550’s, the archbishop of St. Andrews issued a decree allowing locals to “play at the golf” on the links of St. Andrews. There were 22 holes at St. Andrews, 10 holes sharing the same green. The farthest hole and the closest were the only two greens not shared. So a player would play “Out” to the farthest green and then back “IN” to the clubhouse. The players coming IN had the right of way, the players heading OUT yielded the green to them. In 1764 the course was reduced to 18 holes with 4 having their own green. The 18 holes became the standard. As the game became more popular, sharing greens became impractical. There are still some courses where greens serve more than one hole, but these usually have two flags and are known as double or twin greens.
I hope this article has explained the basics of the scorecard. If there is still a question in your mind, feel free to Email me. I always try to be available and willing to answer any questions. The only thing that would prevent me from answering a question is not having the answer.
Until I hear from you,
Play often, Play fair and above all HAVE FUN!.
I love this game!
Duffy
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