I hear coworkers talking about golf handicaps (usually in the 80’s range) and smile/nod my way through the conversation. I’m assuming it’s how many strokes over an 18 hole day?
In: 85
Every hole on a course has a “par” – the number of strokes (times you hit the ball) it should take you to finish the hole. This is typically how many strokes it should take you to reach the green if you play well plus 2 putts. If you add up all of the pars for the 18 holes, you get par for the course. Typically courses are par 72, plus or minus a stroke or two.
Now, _most_ golfers don’t play that well. They will take more than 2 putts on the green and/or take more strokes to reach the green in the first place. Averaged out over an entire round, this means that most golfers tend to shoot over par; they take additional strokes to finish the course than someone who played well all 18 holes would take.
That overage is the handicap – how many _extra_ strokes do you take to finish the course. So if a course is par 72 and you have a handicap of 5, that means that you’d would, on average, take 77 strokes to finish that entire course.
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