WHOA! This can't be right!, My handicap tracker says I lost 20 points from my index in one day! Options

[Speedly]

So here's the story:

Today, I went golfing with my girlfriend on a little executive 9-hole course. There were two differences in the round from any other round:

1.) We did not play the eighth hole. The way the course is set up, the 8th is set some 300 yards away from any of the other holes, and it's kind of a pain to walk back there, play the hole, and walk back. I probably would have done it if I were alone, but it was unusually warm today, and my girlfriend didn't want to walk back there, so we didn't.

2.) We were going around another time, and we played the 1st and 2nd holes before we decided it was too damned hot, and packed it in.

Now, I know there's a procedure for scoring rounds where the entirety wasn't played according to your current handicap - but I can't recall them from the top of my head.

I use oobgolf.com to keep track of my scores, so maybe it's a glitch in the system, but it shows me at a net 12 (gross 39), on a course that's a par 58 if you play twice around. My handicap is around 31, but the handicap calculator on the website mentioned before shot me down to an 11.9 handicap, with something like 14 by-the-books rounds in its records. (The other course's rounds I marked as "practice rounds," thereby not affecting my handicap. I wouldn't normally, but it specifically has it on their website that rounds played there may -not- be used for establishing a USGA handicap.)

Ultimately, my question after much blather is, what's the proper procedure for marking my scorecard correctly, and has anyone else had similar trouble with their site? I'm not playing any tournaments or anything... but 11? Really?

This post has been edited by Speedly: Jun 24 2009, 12:04 AM

[Speedly]

Update: I plugged my scores for the day into Excel, and figured out my scoring average for Par 3's and Par 4's (there are no Par 5's on this course). I then put in scores according to this average (Par 3's were an average of 3.75 strokes per hole, so I put in three 4's and one 3 to make this), and marked on the notes which scores were marked with calculated numbers, rather than actual.

Is that close to what should be happening?

[jjj912]

On a nine hole course, you must play at least seven holes before the round can be submitted for handicap purposes. On an 18 hole course, you must play at least thirteen holes. For each unplayed hole, record a score of par plus the number of handicap strokes you were entitled to for those holes. For an 18 hole course in which you played at least 7 holes, but less than 13, then you enter in a nine hole score (you would need the nine hole slope and course rating - assuming anyone knew what it was).

As for your 11 index, I don't know. Compare the course rating to the par. If the course rating is close to 55, then oobgolf is assuming that the you are playing 18 hole rounds. So entering in nine hole scores would, obviously, give a bad answer. With as many scores as you have, I have trouble believing that a single round could drop you from a 31 to an 11.

I made a few assumptions about the course rating, slope, and your average score and played around the numbers a bit. I found that, for the type of course you have described, if you were entering in nine hole scores into a handicap tracker expecting 18 hole scores then you would get an index of around +11. Note that it is plus 11, meaning you would be 11 strokes better than a scratch player.

One final note, for official USGA handicaps, scores made at courses that are less than 3,000 yards for 18 holes (or less than 1,500 yards for 9 holes) are not eligible for handicap calculation purposes.

[Speedly]

I didn't know about that last bit. Thanks for the time!

I ended up marking the score that I was asking about as a practice round too. Between my erratic hole playing and the fact that the course in question is unrated by the USGA from either set of tees, it seemed like the most correct thing to do.