Adjusting Scores

Equitable Stroke Control

  1. Equitable Stroke Control (ESC) keeps an exceptionally bad hole from seriously affecting your Handicap Index. For example, if you occasionally make a mess of a water hole and wind up playing the hole poorly, the Equitable Stroke Control is used to adjust your score into it's normal range.

  2. Equitable Stroke Control sets a maximum number or strokes a player can post on any given hole depending on the player's Course Handicap.

  3. For Handicap purposes, you are required to adjust your hole scores (actual or probable) when they are higher than the maximum number you can post.

  4. There is no limit to the number of holes on which you can adjust your score.

    Adjust Your Scores using Equitable Stroke control
    18-Hole Handicap Maximum Score on Any Hole
    9 or less Double Bogey
    10 through 19 7
    20 through 29 8
    30 through 39 9
    40 and above 10

It takes just a few seconds to adjust your score
once you know how the system applies to you!

Incompleted Holes

  1. If you have had a disastrous hole and have reached your equitable stroke control maximum, that is your score for the hole.

  2. If you have picked up on a hole and have not reached your equitable stroke control maximum, you post the score you most likely would have made for that hole. That score, however, must not exceed your Equitable Stroke Control limit. (The following are examples of ways to determine your score.)

    • Alice and June are partners. Alice is on the green, June chips in for 3. Alice is 2 feet from the hole, putting for her 3. She picks up her ball and scores a 3 for the hole also, as it is likely she will make her putt.

    • Same scenario as A, but Alice is 10 feet from the hole with a difficult "down hill slider". It is unlikely she would make the putt, so she will score a 4 because she assumes she will 2 putt.


Conceded Strokes

  1. In a match, if your opponent concedes a putt, you should record, for handicap purposes, the score you most likely would have made. If it's a very long putt - say 80 feet - for handicap purposes you may either play out the hole, or add two strokes to the number of shots you've played so far.


Holes Not Played

  1. When a hole isn't played, your score for the hole is par plus any handicap strokes which you're entitle to receive on that particular hole, based on your full Course Handicap. The following is an example of how to determine your score:

    1. Alice get caught in traffic and is late for the team match. She joins June on the 3rd tee. Now remember, Alice never played either of the first two holes. Her score for those holes shall be par play any handicap strokes received on those holes. If Alice has a 14 handicap and the first hole is stroke hole #5, Alice records a par plus 1 for her score; if the second hole is stroke hole #15, Alice records a par for her score.

  2. If you play a hole other than under the Rules of Golf (i.e. using a mulligan), your score on that hole for handicap purposes shall be par plus any handicap strokes which you are entitled to receive on that hole.