From your first submitted rounds to the number on your card
Your Handicap Index is the number that shows your current playing level. It lets you compete fairly against better or worse golfers, and it travels with you from course to course.
You do not pick it yourself. Once you join an affiliated club (or hold an iGolf subscription) and start submitting scores, the system calculates it for you and updates it after each qualifying round. New to this? See how to get a handicap in the UK.
Every qualifying round you submit becomes a score differential (the Diff in My England Golf). See what is a score differential if you want the detail on how each one is worked out.
Your Handicap Index is then calculated from those differentials. The system picks your best recent ones, averages them, and rounds to one decimal. It is designed to reflect your potential, not punish every bad hole. Only your last 20 qualifying rounds are considered at most.
This is where most club golfers end up. The system looks at your most recent 20 qualifying rounds, picks the best 8 score differentials, averages them, and rounds to one decimal. That is your Handicap Index.
The other 12 rounds in that window are ignored. As you submit new scores, older ones drop out of the 20. If your form has slipped, the soft cap and hard cap may also limit how far your index can rise.
Until you have 20 score differentials saved, WHS uses a shorter version of the same idea. It looks at fewer of your best Diffs, not always eight. The exact number depends on how many scores you have on file.
With only a handful of scores, the system also applies a built-in correction from the WHS table below. You do not need to work this out yourself. Your app applies it automatically every time your record updates.
| Scores on record | Which Diffs are used | Built-in correction |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Your best 1 | Subtract 2.0 |
| 4 | Your best 1 | Subtract 1.0 |
| 5 | Your best 1 | None |
| 6 | Average of best 2 | Subtract 1.0 |
| 7-8 | Average of best 2 | None |
| 9-11 | Average of best 3 | None |
| 12-14 | Average of best 4 | None |
| 15-16 | Average of best 5 | None |
| 17-18 | Average of best 6 | None |
| 19 | Average of best 7 | None |
| 20+ | Average of best 8 | None |
3 scores, then a 4th
Your three best Diffs are 22.1, 25.0, and 26.4. With 3 scores on record, WHS uses your best one (22.1) and subtracts 2.0.
Handicap Index: 20.1
You submit a fourth round with a Diff of 22.0. That is slightly better, but with 4 scores the correction is now only 1.0.
Handicap Index: 22.0 − 1.0 = 21.0
Your index rose from 20.1 to 21.0 even though you played a little better. That is the formula changing, not a mistake.
When you have 20 rounds saved, the highlighted rows below are the eight best differentials that would set your index:
My Scores (last 20 rounds)
Average of highlighted scores: 14.175
Handicap Index: 14.2
Only submitted rounds count. That includes club competitions and approved General Play scores. A great round that never gets entered will not change your handicap.
Your Handicap Index is only half the story. When you arrive at a course, the system converts it into a Course Handicap for those tees, then (in competition) a Playing Handicap for the format you are playing. See playing handicap vs course handicap for how that works on the day.
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