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Why we play for scores instead of handicap differential?

I'm one of those odd balls who measures improvement through both average score and index.

What I score relative to which tees and on which course can mean a score 95 beats a score of 88 up one side and down the other.
 
I don't keep a handicap. Differential means nothing to me.
 
blugold said:
I don't keep a handicap. Differential means nothing to me.
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Only about 10% of U.S. golfers do keep a handicap, so differentials are meaningless to about 90% of golfers as a whole.


JonMA1 said:
I'm one of those odd balls who measures improvement through both average score and index.

What I score relative to which tees and on which course can mean a score 95 beats a score of 88 up one side and down the other.
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I only use that to salve my ego when I shoot a bad round at a higher rated course than I usually play. "Yeah, but that 93 would've been an 86 on my home course". :ROFLMAO:
 
USAF Retired said:
I doubt anyone I golf with knows what course differential means...I kinda don't care about it and don't think about it other than when I post my score and it pops up.
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This is the answer to OP's question. Most golfers don't keep a handicap, and plenty that do don't understand what a differential is.
 
I actually do calculate my differentials and track them over time in a spreadsheet. And I agree with the op but I think nobody else will do it because it’s too complicated for most people to do or even understand.
 
BigMac said:
Only about 10% of U.S. golfers do keep a handicap, so differentials are meaningless to about 90% of golfers as a whole.



I only use that to salve my ego when I shoot a bad round at a higher rated course than I usually play. "Yeah, but that 93 would've been an 86 on my home course". :ROFLMAO:
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Not me. I’m fine with a mid 90s score anyway. But when I shoot that on a course and from a set of tees I have no business playing, it’s a win.

To each their own I suppose.
 
Because the game is played against par?
I just play from tees that suit my game, 5900-6300 yards.
i really don’t care about slope, etc.
I can shoot 85 on a shorter, supposed easier course and 77 on a “harder” track.
Old man Par is the opponent, and he always wins 🙄
Only time my handicap comes into my mind is in our team game.
 
#ScoreJacking 😜
 
El Rayo X said:
Because the game is played against par?
I just play from tees that suit my game, 5900-6300 yards.
i really don’t care about slope, etc.
I can shoot 85 on a shorter, supposed easier course and 77 on a “harder” track.
Old man Par is the opponent, and he always wins 🙄
Only time my handicap comes into my mind is in our team game.
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And any THP Experience.

I find it interesting when people say they don't care about the factors that determine their handicap when nearly every competitive thing in golf is handicapped or flighted by cap.
 
OldandStiff said:
And any THP Experience.

I find it interesting when people say they don't care about the factors that determine their handicap when nearly every competitive thing in golf is handicapped or flighted by cap.
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I don’t play much competitive golf anymore.
Mainly because as a 7-12 cap, I have score well below my cap to win anything.
I carry a handicap to assess how my game progresses or regresses ( which has been the case of late).
And for events that require one.
I really don’t have it mind in my everyday play.
 
OldandStiff said:
And any THP Experience.

I find it interesting when people say they don't care about the factors that determine their handicap when nearly every competitive thing in golf is handicapped or flighted by cap.
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yea which kind of goes back to my original point. I get your weekend golfer doesn't understand it, but most of the regular posters on here do. The "Fringe Lunatic" do understand it, and so my question was more to them. Using my example above a course can literally be 10 strokes harder so to me it should be talked about more than it is.

I've enjoyed people's perspectives on it for sure.
 
I’m one of the few that pays attention to the differential way more than my score. If it’s a new course, I‘m selecting tees bases on course rating as well as yardage. My best round last summer in relation to par was a 67 but a 70 at my home course gives me the same differential so it certainly wasn’t my “best” round for the year. I’d much rather shoot a 70 with a -5 differential than a 67 with a -2.2 differential.
 
V14_Heels said:
yea which kind of goes back to my original point. I get your weekend golfer doesn't understand it, but most of the regular posters on here do. The "Fringe Lunatic" do understand it, and so my question was more to them. Using my example above a course can literally be 10 strokes harder so to me it should be talked about more than it is.

I've enjoyed people's perspectives on it for sure.
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This is a good topic, but I am sure it doesn't fit some golfers that just want to smack the ball around and not concerned about the course difficulty. I deal with course difficulty as I play in two different senior tournament leagues (actually three, but one is a smaller laid back league which mostly play less challenging courses). I research course slopes and ratings as I know how that will affect my round as long as I am playing normally.

Also it is worth stating that my round and hole strategy changes based on the course ratings. That lets me know the difficulties and what to look for and how my strategy will play out for a given course. This has allowed me to minimize high risk shots and difficult hazards that might get me in trouble, and play to my strengths. Once I started doing this my game plan changed and my scoring changed dramatically.

For example, I might not go for a Par 5 in two if the difficulty and risk are very high, whereas on an easy course that would not be much of a risk even with an errant shot. If the hole is extremely high risk, I would play it more as a par/bogey and a par would just be icing on the cake and keeps my score from suffering a double, or a blow up hole. My index indicates my skill and position in competition based on a number of rounds and is an indicator of my overall performance level. IMO golf is more about playing against the course with strategy and not so much the competition.
 
It's funny. When I came back from Florida, I compared scores with a colleague who recently played 4 of the 6 courses we played. In our heads we knew the difficulty of each course without referencing the course and slope ratings. I'm friends with a few of the starters at our course and they'll often ask what I shot (and of course we all know the course well), but that is about it. I don't keep a scorecard, rather I let Arccos do it for me and then go look after the round.

That being said, there are definitely horses for courses. I played my worst round in Florida at a water-laden 70.1/130 course and my best at a course that was 72.1/137. I never think about differential, other than thinking at the end of the round: "that was pretty good for a tough course." If I played well on an easy track, I don't think it ever crosses my mind.
 
I monitor the differentials, and realize a 78 on a course with a slope of 113 is different than a 78 on a course with a slope of 126. Or that an 82 might be a "better" score than a 78 depending on the differential. That all said, my main focus is on score.

In addition, weather should be considered. For example, playing an "easier" course under very windy conditions versus playing a more difficult course under benign conditions. Perhaps one course is soaked, and another is firm, or you are playing on a day when the temperatures are in the 40s versus the 60s.
 
blugold said:
I don't keep a handicap. Differential means nothing to me.
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I do keep a handicap but I never look at differential. I'm only looking at scores. I'm not happy if I don't break 90, I"m jumping for joy if I shoot less than 84
 
Slowmo said:
I do keep a handicap but I never look at differential. I'm only looking at scores. I'm not happy if I don't break 90, I"m jumping for joy if I shoot less than 84
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Sure. People get emotional feelings from looking at their score at the end. But it’s an illusion unless you are always playing the same course.

If you want a par 72 based score to get emotional about but based closer to reality, Just take the differential and add it to the par or perhaps with added to the rating, to get a virtual score which perhaps more closely resembles your performance that day on that course relative to other rounds on other courses. There are some easier courses I can break 80 and others that I struggle to break 90. With grey area in between. Unless you play one course pretty much all the time then a gross score is almost meaningless other then at each extreme you probably know you had a good day or a bad day in general, but you already know that without even looking at your score. I think it’s nearly pointless to even write down a score unless you are either competing sgainst other people that day or else using the differential to determine your actual performance:
 
Dewdman42 said:
Sure! I just use the spreadsheet to calculate it anyway. I can see a graph over time of my differentials, including the last 12 bad rounds. This is the only way to have any kind of fair assessment about actual performance. To me, the gross scores start to become meaningless and it’s pointless to even write them down unless you are either competing or using the differential to determine how well you played. I feel good when my differential is lower then average and bad when it’s higher then average and that is golf, but unless it’s a course you play all the time and know what exactly you should be able to do in it,lll


Sure. People get emotional feelings from looking at their score at the end. But it’s an illusion unless you are always playing the same course.

If you want a par 72 based score to get emotional about but based closer to reality, Just take the differential and add it to the par or perhaps with added to the rating, to get a virtual score which perhaps more closely resembles your performance that day on that course relative to other rounds on other courses. There are some easier courses I can break 80 and others that I struggle to break 90. With grey area in between. Unless you play one course pretty much all the time then a gross score is almost meaningless other then at each extreme you probably know you had a good day or a bad day in general, but you already know that without even looking at your score. I think it’s nearly pointless to even write down a score unless you are either competing sgainst other people that day or else using the differential to determine your actual performance:
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Well in my case I can shoot 81 one day and 101 on the same course 2 days later so...
 
I think that is unusual. But obviously not impossible. Probably more of a case of drinking or completely giving up on the 101 round and doing nutty things while not really trying.

The stats say that in reality our average differential is only going to be 2-3 over handicap. Some of our best rounds are only 2-3 under handicap, rarely a few that are 4-5 under handicap and beyond that is probably not an accurate handicap.

Let’s go with 6 under average and 6 over average as the typical range. That’s a range of maybe 12 strokes with your average being 3 over index. And your typical worst being maybe 9 over index. I’m drastically over simplifying here.

If you always play the same course then you know when you are having a good or bad round and you know your min and max and I tracked myself for a while to see if Mr handicap was right about the stats and it turns out he was right it’s actually quite boring to find out that any round in which I don’t drink, cheat, or screw around taking risky shots, etc results in numbers scarily within those ranges.

But if you play different courses a lot the whole spread changes a little and shifts up or down depending on course difficulty. The only way to know how you REALLY did is to look at your differential and compare it against your average differential ( not your index) in other words compare your differential of the round against +2 or +3 which is actually what your average of all rounds should be. If your differential is anything under +3 it’s a reason to know you had a better then average round.

Your gross score is completely deceiving unless you always play the same course.

But purely emotionally it’s hard to look at +1 differential and think “whoo hoo, nice round”. It’s a lot easier emotionally to think about 84 if
You remember playing 90 somewhere else. But it’s not an objective assessment that way
 
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V14_Heels said:
... why is it we don't speak about our scores off the differentials instead which tell a much better story? Guess the average golfer has no concept of handicap?
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I agree with your comments. A raw score is really easy to understand even if it isn't the whole story. I don't typically discuss with others what my score was or attempt to compare scores. When I do, I try to add some context such as course length, rating and slope. I suspect most correctly pay little attention to all this babble.
 
Tradition would be my answer. Caps/Diffs haven't always been around.

I understand caps/diffs, but just keeping score is just so much easier.

If I think it's important, I will factor in the differences. Other than that, I just let the course gurus figure it out for me when I turn my score cards in.
 
I really just care about score, not differential. I don’t feel good if I shoot 80 on a really hard course and am at my cap.
 
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