What is a Golf Handicap? + My Handicap Reveal! - Tour Bound Ep. 7 

I get where you are coming from on the usefulness of handicaps. I understand that most pros don't even have handicaps or GHINs. When someone says that Tiger's index is +8, that is most likely because they calculated it out of curiosity, not because he submits his scores after every round. The fact is that pros use gross scores and not net scores in competition. But let's say you are playing your nephew in baseball, and you let him pitch from 40' instead of 60'6", does that even the playing field for him? Is that fair, or should you let him also get 4 strikes instead of 3? In golf a handicap allows people of uneven abilities to compete and compare how they are doing relative to their skill levels. What other sport can really do that with the precision that a golf handicap allows? The alternative would be, "No way am I playing you you are way better than me, I stand no chance!" Using a handicap allows you to play and feel competitive. Of course, we realize the low handicap guy is better and would win gross score, but then why compete? Not everyone is trying to be a pro and handicaps are made for amateurs and recreational golfers, not pros or aspiring pros. The real problem with handicaps is that few people have them and so they estimate with averages, which is very inaccurate, or they don't keep the handicaps updated, or they purposely report only the scores they want to report (sandbaggers and the flip side, vanity indexes).

"A scratch golfer averages 72". This is a common misconception. You did explain that to determine a handicap you choose the best 8 rounds of the last 20 rounds played. The average of those best 8 rounds is your handicap (index). The best 8 is 40% of the 20 rounds, and the average of those 8 rounds would be the 20 percentile. In other words, your index isn't what you would average (shoot half the time on average) but it is the score that you would shoot 20% of the time. In other words you shoot your index, or better, 1 out of only 5 rounds you play. So the handicap doesn't represent what you would shoot on average, it is meant to represent the kind of score that you could shoot when you are playing at your best (top 20%). There are a bunch of caveats to that statement above, but yeah "average of what" is the most common misconception.